Audiobook · read by volunteers
Love Conquers All
Robert C. Benchley (1889–1945)
Read by Ted Delorme · 13 chapters · 6 h 53
About the book
Robert Benchley was one of the funniest writers of the 1920s, and this volume shows why. A founding member of the Algonquin Round Table, alongside Dorothy Parker and George Kaufman, he turned the small worries of modern life into essays full of absurd logic and dry wit. Love Conquers All gathers pieces that wander happily from one subject to the next, with observations of human behaviour that are all too accurate. Written for magazines, his pieces are short, quick and made for listening. Benchley’s humour is quiet, self-mocking and surprisingly fresh, and his timing carries well into spoken form. Nearly seven hours of listening in the voice of a single reader, divided into short groups of chapters, make this a good companion for a long trip or for anyone in need of a smile.
Introduction
Robert Benchley, who lived from 1889 to 1945, was a writer, humorist and actor of note during the 1920s through the early 1940s. Born in Massachusetts, he spent his early literary career in New York City as an editor, critic and columnist for many of the major magazines of the day. Along with George Kaufman, Dorothy Parker and Harpo Marx, he was an original member of the Algonquin Round Table, the lunchtime circle of wits that became a legend of American letters. His popularity led him to a side career in radio and film, and he won an Academy Award in 1935 for a short comedy, How to Sleep.
Love Conquers All, published in 1922, is one of his early collections. It is made up of short humorous pieces on a variety of topics, and in this recording they are grouped in 13 sections of about five pieces each. The tone is that of a man who pretends to be baffled by the world and gets laughs out of his own confusion. Where other humorists of the period relied on punchlines, Benchley liked to build comedy out of logic carried a little too far.
The whole recording lasts almost seven hours. Because the chapters are short and independent, the collection can be taken in small doses, a few pieces at a time, which suits it well.
LibriVox volunteers shared the work of recording it. For readers of Dorothy Parker or James Thurber, this is a valuable companion piece, and for anyone new to American humour of the 1920s it is an inviting introduction. Some references are of their time, but the situations he describes remain familiar.
Public domain
Robert C. Benchley died in 1945: 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