An Encounter with an Interviewer
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8 minutes, 42 seconds
Unabridged Humor/Literature
1874
Mark Twain deals with the media. Performed by Alex Wilson.
Continue reading "An Encounter with an Interviewer"
Posted by alex at 4:34 PM
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5 minutes, 19 seconds
Unabridged Narrative Poem
1816
In which our hero, the most Romantic of all the Romantic poets, takes on the end of the world.
Written in Geneva, Switzerland in the summer of 1816, when Byron, Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, and John Polidori spent their evenings telling each other ghost stories. The resulting tales included Shelley's Frankenstein, Polidori's creation of the vampire/vampyre genre (based on a novel fragment of Byron's), and this gloomy, speculative verse.
Read by Alex Wilson.
Posted by alex at 11:02 AM
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1 hour, 2 minutes
Unabridged Humor/Ghost/Christmas Novella
1891
A Christmas mystery story where even the narrator can't be trusted to stay sober or keep his clothes on.
"There must be something ghostly in the air of Christmas--something about the close, muggy atmosphere that draws up the ghosts, like the dampness of the summer rains brings out the frogs and snails."
Performed by Susie Berneis and Robert Bethune.
Continue reading "Told After Supper"
Posted by alex at 5:43 PM
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22 minutes
Unabridged Longform Narrative Poem
1816
The story of Francois Bonivard, a 16th century monk imprisoned in the Chateau de Chillon.
Read by Alex Wilson.
Continue reading "The Prisoner of Chillon"
Posted by alex at 1:49 PM
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30 minutes, 18 seconds
Unabridged Science Fiction Story
1897
One hundred and one years before the films Armegeddon and Deep Impact entered U.S. theaters, the father of modern science fiction scared the crap out of Victorian London with this, the first of such death-from-above science fiction tales. Read by Alex Wilson. Not for sale in the EU.
Posted by alex at 2:33 PM
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39 minutes, 28 seconds
Unabridged Free Verse Poetry Collection
1855
"Calamus" is the fifth book of Walt Whitman's legendary poetry collection Leaves of Grass. In these thirty-nine poems, Whitman compares "athletic love" (or love between two men) to the calamus plant, in terms of diversity and depth. It includes the poems:
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In Paths Untrodden Scented Herbage of My Breast Whoever You are, Holding Me now in Hand For You, O Democracy These, I, Singing in Spring Not Heaving from My Ribb'd Breast Only Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances The Base of all Metaphysics Recorders Ages Hence When I heard at the Close of the Day Are You the New person Drawn Toward Me? Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone Not Heat Flames up and Consumes Trickle Drops City of Orgies Behold this Swarthy Face I saw in Louisiana a Live Oak Growing To a Stranger This Moment, Yearning and Thoughtful I Hear It Was Charged Against Me |
The Prairie-Grass Dividing When I Peruse the Conquer’d Fame We Two Boys Together Clinging A Promise to California Here the Frailest Leaves of Me No Labor-Saving Machine A Glimpse A Leaf for Hand in Hand Earth! my Likeness! I Dream'd in a Dream What think You I take my Pen in Hand? To the East and to the West Sometimes with One I Love To a Western Boy Fast Anchor'd, Eternal O Love! Among the Multitude O You Whom I Often and Silently Come That Shadow, my Likeness Full of Life, Now |
Read by Alex Wilson. Sample contains the complete poem "Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances."
Continue reading "Leaves of Grass Book V: Calamus"
Posted by alex at 5:55 PM
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16 minutes, 7 seconds
Unabridged Humor/Storytelling/Essay
1878
Twain proposes some realistic sequels to three common morality tales.
Continue reading "About Magnanimous-Incident Literature"
Posted by alex at 3:28 PM
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6 minutes, 24 seconds
Unabridged Short Story
1895
A short story about a woman believing and hoping (and manipulating) that she may have both her security in marriage and passions outside of it. Read by Alex Wilson.
Posted by alex at 11:04 AM
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27 minutes, 01 seconds
Unabridged Horror / Science Fiction
1835
What happens when you hypnotize a person in the moments before he dies? The story that began as a hoax (it was first published without the "fiction" label) is one of the first modern science fiction tales.
Continue reading "The Facts in the Case of M Valdemar"
Posted by alex at 7:26 PM
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38 minutes, 54 seconds
Unabridged Short Fiction
1835
A puritan confronts witches, the devil, and his own morality in the spooky, Salem woods in this classic American short story.
Continue reading "Young Goodman Brown"
Posted by alex at 6:04 PM
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56 minutes, 45 seconds
Unabridged Essay/Speech
1859
Against the then-popular condemnation of the radical abolitionist who seized a federal armory, attempting to arm slaves and create a violent rebelion against the South, Thoreau delivered this spirited speech justifying Brown's character and actions to those who would have rather resolved (or failed to resolve) the issue of slavery using discussions and diplomacy. Read by Alex Wilson.
Continue reading "A Plea for Captain John Brown"
Posted by alex at 5:01 PM
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2 minutes, 22 seconds
Unabridged Speech
1863
"Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the propisition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great Civil War..." Given by US President Abraham Lincoln on the battlefield November 19, 1863, after the hard-fought, casualty-ridden, and turning-point Civil War battle near Gettysburg, PA.
This speech is inscribed, along with Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Read by Alex Wilson.
Continue reading "The Gettysburg Address"
Posted by alex at 11:17 AM
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2 hours, 20 minutes
Unabridged Free Verse Poetry Collection
1855
"Song of Myself" is the longest and most famous book (of 35 total) of Walt Whitman's legendary poetry collection Leaves of Grass. Song of Myself is a longform poem in 52 parts. Read by Alex Wilson.
Continue reading "Leaves of Grass Book III: Song of Myself"
Posted by alex at 12:01 AM
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21 minutes, 12 seconds
Unabridged Humorous Story
1870
A comedic fable about gender issues, succession, identity crisis, and, yes, a bit of love and romance in a patriarchal kingdom in the year 1222. By the incomparable Mark Twain.
Continue reading "A Medieval Romance"
Posted by alex at 12:08 AM
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6 minutes, 58 seconds
Unabridged Formal Poetry
1816
Two poems by one of the founders of the Romantic Movement.
Coleridge claimed that "Kubla Khan," one of his most famous works, came to him in an opium-inspired dream. Coleridge's symbolic pleasure-dome of Xanadu in this poem is referenced and even built in Orson Well's classic film, Citizen Kane. The full title of the poem is "Kubla Khan Or, a Vision in a Dream. A Fragment."
"The Pains of Sleep" by contrast is a more conversational and emotional piece, dealing with nightmares instead of utopian fantasies, but it is very likely that this poem, too, was inspired by Coleridge's continued opium use.
Though both poems were first published at the same time in 1816, Coleridge wrote "Kubla Khan" a good 6 years before 1803's "The Pains of Sleep," revealing very different mental reactions to his continued drug use. 1816 was also the year when Coleridge finally sought help for his addiction.
Read by Alex Wilson.
Continue reading "Kubla Khan & The Pains of Sleep"
Posted by alex at 11:46 AM
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33 minutes, 22 seconds
Unabridged Horror / Mystery Fiction
1843
"Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such?"
Poe's classic horror tale about intoxication, murder, and a most mysterious cat. Read by Alex Wilson.
Continue reading "The Black Cat"
Posted by alex at 12:07 AM
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16 minutes, 15 seconds
Unabridged Short Western Story
1892
A farmer in the Western frontier has a vision in one of Cather's earliest stories. First published in The Hesperian.
Continue reading "Lou, the Prophet"
Posted by alex at 10:52 AM
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37 minutes, 26 seconds
Two Unabridged Humor Essays
1882,1899
Includes the Telltale Weekly comedic recordings of Mark Twain's "My First Lie (And How I Got Out of It)" and "On the Decay of the Art of Lying." From "My First Lie (and How I Got Out of It):"
"As I understand it, what you desire is information about 'my first lie, and how I got out of it.' I was born in 1835; I am well along, and my memory is not as good as it was. If you had asked about my first truth it would have been easier for me and kinder of you, for I remember that fairly well. I remember it as if it were last week. The family think it was the week before, but that is flattery..."
From "On the Decay of the Art of Lying:"
"Observe, I do not mean to suggest that the custom of lying has suffered any decay or interruption--no, for the Lie, as a virtue, a principle, is eternal; the lie, as a recreation, a solace, a refuge in time of need, the fourth Grace, the tenth Muse, man's best and surest friend, is immortal, and cannot perish from the earth while this club remains. My complaint simply concerns the decay of the art of lying..."
Two humorous essays/speeches read by Alex Wilson.
Continue reading "Mark Twain Lies!"
Posted by alex at 7:55 PM
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1 hour, 14 minutes
Unabridged Story Collection
1891, 1894, 1909
Susie Berneis and Robert Bethune narrate five stories by Bierce, full of vivid characters, precise and evocative language, surprises and suspense.
An Occurrence on Owl Creek Bridge
A life, flashing before the eyes, and a miraculous escape from certain death, suddenly becomes--something else entirely. Bierce's strangest and most famous fantasy. A French film adaptation of "Owl Creek Bridge" won the Academy Award for short film in 1963, and also became the hightest-rated episode of The Twilight Zone.
Staley Fleming's Hallucination
The ghost of a Newfoundland dog with a white forefoot--and hungry for revenge!
The Damned Thing
A wild, ferocious animal determined to drive a man off his land-or or drive him insane, once he realizes the strange truth about the danger he faces.
Diagnosis of Death
A doctor whose incredibly accurate diagnoses are not at all conducive to a long and healthy life.
The Boarded Window
A window forever boarded up; a love forever gone.
Written a century ago, these stories still capture the imagination with vivid, precise language that bites--and may even draw blood. This Freshwater Seas production presents these five classics performed by Susie Berneis and Robert Bethune, with subtle musical underscoring to enhance and enrich Bierce's words.
Continue reading "A Bite of Bierce: Owl Creek Bridge and Other Stories"
Posted by alex at 3:45 PM
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43 minutes, 21 seconds
Unabridged Formal Poem
1820
Shelley at his most playful (starting with the dedication to his wife, Frankenstein author Mary Shelley: "On her objecting to the following poem, upon the score of its containing no human interest."), combining Greek and Egyptian myths into a fanciful meditation on creativity. A longform poem of the fantastic, read by Alex Wilson.
Continue reading "The Witch of Atlas"
Posted by alex at 6:24 PM
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36 minutes, 37 seconds
Unabridged Memoir / Essay
1881
"In the first narrative of my experience in slavery, written nearly forty years ago, and in various writings since, I have given the public what I considered very good reasons for withholding the manner of my escape..." Frederick Douglass reveals the missing piece of his autobiography, in a tale that could not have been told without endangering others while slavery continued to exist.
Continue reading "My Escape from Slavery"
Posted by alex at 10:59 AM
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