Audiobook · read by volunteers
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Collection Vol. 001
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)
Read by Peter Yearsley, Ed Good, David Barnes, J. M. Smallheer, Alan Davis Drake (1945-2010), Kristin Hughes (1974-2021), ML Cohen, Betsie Bush, Julian Jamison · 22 chapters · 1 h 03
About the book
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was the most widely read American poet of his century, and this collection, assembled to mark the two hundredth anniversary of his birth in February 2007, offers a generous handful of his shorter poems. Twenty-two pieces, read by LibriVox volunteers, range from the Italian coast in Amalfi to the quiet reflection of The Bridge, from the evening calm of The Day Is Done to a sonnet drawn from Dante's Divine Comedy. Longfellow's verse is clear, musical and often moving, concerned with memory, time, nature, loss and the pleasures of an ordinary evening. In just over an hour you can hear why generations of readers learned his lines by heart, and why his work remains a pleasure to read aloud. Each poem is short, so the whole volume is easy to take in small pieces, and it serves equally well as an introduction for newcomers or a pleasant return for those who loved these poems as children.
Introduction
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 to 1882) was born in Portland, Maine, and became a professor at Harvard before devoting himself fully to writing. His long narrative poems, such as Evangeline, The Song of Hiawatha and the ballad of Paul Revere, made him famous on both sides of the Atlantic, and for much of the nineteenth century he was the best known poet in the English-speaking world. He also translated Dante, and the influence of the Italian poet is felt in several of the pieces collected here.
This first volume of the collection was assembled as a tribute on the two hundredth anniversary of his birth, on February 27, 2007. The poems are short, so they make an excellent introduction for someone who has never read him, and they allow a variety of readers to share the work. The titles hint at his range: a view of an Italian town, a poem about a bridge and the passing of time, a poem about change, a quiet evening verse, and the first of several readings drawn from his sonnets on Dante's Divine Comedy.
The recording lasts about an hour and runs to twenty-two short tracks. You may wish to listen in small portions, or all at once as a sampler of a poet who believed that verse should be clear, accessible and humane. Critics have sometimes thought him old-fashioned, but his gift for rhythm and simple images remains hard to resist, particularly when poems are read aloud by volunteers who bring their own warmth and care to the task. Anyone who has heard a line of Longfellow in passing will probably find it here in its proper setting.
Public domain
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow died in 1882: 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