Audiobook · read by volunteers
God's Country—And the Woman
James Oliver Curwood (1878–1927)
Read by Esther · 27 chapters · 7 h 10
About the book
Deep in the Canadian north, mystery, adventure and romance meet in a tale by James Oliver Curwood, the American author who made the northern wilderness his territory. Curwood saved enough money to travel to the Canadian northwest in 1909, and the journey set him on a career of wilderness stories. God’s Country and the Woman is among the novels that grew from it, an adventure in the grand outdoor tradition in which the landscape is almost a character in itself. The Canadian North, often called God’s Country, gives the book both its setting and its title. Expect the weather, the distances and the dangers of the far north to matter as much as the people who cross them, in the kind of fast-moving story that kept readers of the early twentieth century turning pages. Twenty-seven chapters, read by a single LibriVox volunteer, make about seven hours of listening, a good companion for lovers of wilderness fiction and old-fashioned romance.
Introduction
James Oliver Curwood, who lived from 1878 to 1927, was an American author, born in Owosso, Michigan, of adventure stories set in the far north. By 1909 he had saved enough money to travel to the Canadian northwest, a journey that inspired his tales of the wilderness. The success of his novels later gave him the means to travel further and to devote himself to writing.
God’s Country and the Woman, published in 1915, is one of the books that grew from that experience. It belongs to the category of action and adventure fiction and combines mystery and romance with the harsh landscape of the north. Curwood was a popular author in his day, and several of his books were adapted for the cinema, which suggests the visual quality of his writing.
His prose is direct and vigorous, concerned with physical action, weather and the conflict between civilisation and the wild. Like many popular works from the early twentieth century, it reflects the attitudes of its time, including in its portrayal of the people and places of the north, and a modern listener may want to keep that in mind.
The recording has twenty-seven chapters and is read throughout by one LibriVox volunteer, giving the story a steady voice over roughly seven hours. The chapters are of moderate length and suit listening in the evening or on a journey. Today it is worth hearing as a representative of a popular genre once enjoyed by millions, and as a vivid evocation of the northern wilderness as it appeared to its readers.
Public domain
James Oliver Curwood died in 1927: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text