In Defense of Harriet Shelley by Mark Twain ~ Full Audiobook [biography]

Classic Audiobook Collection

09/16/22

•

107m

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In Defense of Harriet Shelley by Mark Twain audiobook.

Genre: biography

In Defense of Harriet Shelley is Mark Twain's sharp, meticulously argued case for a woman history has often treated as a footnote - and a villain. Taking aim at popular biographies of the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, Twain reopens the story of Shelley's first marriage to Harriet Westbrook Shelley and challenges the comfortable legends that excuse the famous poet while condemning the young wife he left behind. With a satirist's bite and a lawyer's patience, Twain sifts through quoted passages, assumptions, and secondhand gossip, exposing how reputations are built, how moral blame gets assigned, and how easily a biographical narrative can harden into 'truth.' At the center is Harriet herself: a real person caught between public mythmaking and private suffering, judged by standards that seem designed to protect genius at any cost. As Twain presses his cross-examination, the listener is drawn into a larger conflict about fairness, gendered double standards, and the ethics of storytelling - who gets defended, who gets dismissed, and what we owe the dead when we write their lives.

Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 1

(00:31:33) Chapter 2

(01:03:13) Chapter 3

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Previous Episode

Goldsmith’s Friend Abroad Again by Mark Twain ~ Full Audiobook [comedy]

September 16, 2022

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40m

Goldsmith’s Friend Abroad Again by Mark Twain audiobook.

Genre: comedy

In Goldsmith's Friend Abroad Again, Mark Twain delivers a sharp, darkly funny epistolary satire in the form of letters from Ah Song Hi, a Chinese traveler who sets his sights on America, the celebrated land of liberty and equal rights. Writing home with careful politeness and mounting disbelief, Ah Song Hi describes the long journey across the ocean and his arrival in San Francisco, where the grand promises of opportunity collide with everyday cruelty. As he tries to work, move freely, and simply be treated as a person, he is met by petty officials, hostile crowds, and a legal system that seems eager to punish him for existing in the wrong body and speaking with the wrong accent. Twain uses the narrator's earnest tone and precise observations to expose hypocrisy: the gap between patriotic slogans and the lived reality of an immigrant marked as unwelcome. By turning prejudice into a series of absurd, escalating encounters, the story becomes both a comedy of manners and a fierce moral indictment of anti-Chinese sentiment in 19th-century America.

Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 01

(00:05:32) Chapter 02

(00:13:55) Chapter 03

(00:19:48) Chapter 04

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Next Episode

A Horse’s Tale by Mark Twain ~ Full Audiobook [adventure]

September 16, 2022

•

118m

A Horse’s Tale by Mark Twain audiobook.

Genre: adventure

Told in the proud, observant voice of Soldier Boy, Buffalo Bill's favorite mount, A Horse's Tale carries Mark Twain's wit into a frontier cavalry post where bravery is measured, reputations are made, and animals are expected to serve without complaint. Soldier Boy knows the trails, the bugle calls, and the vanity of the two-legged world, and he watches it all with a mix of humor, loyalty, and hard-won wisdom. Into this rugged routine comes Cathy Alison, a spirited young girl living under the stern protection of her uncle, General Alison. Cathy is drawn to Buffalo Bill's glamour and to Soldier Boy's intelligence and steadiness, and the bond that forms among girl, horse, and scout begins to reshape life at the post.But Twain does not let the story remain a simple yarn of drills and daring. As Soldier Boy is passed from hand to hand and asked to perform under different kinds of authority, the tale presses a sharper question: what does human pride cost the creatures that cannot speak for themselves? By turns comic and tender, the novel becomes a pointed meditation on empathy, cruelty, and the uneasy gap between public heroism and private responsibility.

Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 00

(00:02:17) Chapter 01

(00:11:25) Chapter 02

(00:16:29) Chapter 03

(00:21:44) Chapter 04

(00:27:43) Chapter 05

(00:44:43) Chapter 06

(01:04:32) Chapter 07

(01:08:20) Chapter 08

(01:09:25) Chapter 09

(01:16:41) Chapter 10