Audiobook · read by volunteers
Riddle of the Sands
Erskine Childers (1870–1922)
Read by Gesine · 30 chapters · 12 h 24
About the book
Two young Englishmen set out on a sailing holiday along the sandy coast of the German North Sea. One, Davies, is a keen yachtsman with a small, worn boat; the other, Carruthers, is a polished Foreign Office clerk who expected a quiet Baltic cruise and finds himself drawn into something altogether different. Davies has met a mysterious sailor, suspects a plot, and begins to chart the channels among the shoals and islands. As the pair explore the shallow waters, they discover that something is being prepared on the German coast that could threaten Britain itself. Erskine Childers draws on his own sailing experience to create a story of adventure at sea and a pioneering tale of espionage. Thirty chapters, twelve and a half hours of fog, tides and suspense.
Introduction
Erskine Childers was born in 1870 and died in 1922. An Anglo-Irish writer, he served in the Boer War, and was a keen sailor, and in later life he became involved in Irish politics. He was executed in 1922 during the Irish Civil War. The Riddle of the Sands, published in 1903, is by far the best known of his books.
The novel contains many realistic details based on Childers' own sailing trips along the German North Sea coast. It is the retelling of a yachting expedition in the early twentieth century, combined with an adventurous spy story. It was one of the early invasion novels, popular in that period, which predicted war with Germany and called for British preparedness. The plot involves the uncovering of secret German preparations for an invasion of the United Kingdom. It is often called the first modern spy novel, although others are sometimes given that title, and it influenced later authors of thrillers.
The book's strength lies in its sense of place. Childers writes about channels, tides and weather with a precision that makes the reader feel the cold spray, and his two characters are drawn with humour and warmth.
This LibriVox recording is divided into thirty chapters, beginning with a preface, and is read by a single volunteer. It runs to about twelve and a half hours. Why listen? Because it is a gripping story and a historical document in one. It shows how fears about war were shaping British fiction on the eve of the First World War, and it rewards anyone with a taste for boats.
Public domain
Erskine Childers died in 1922: 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