The open boat stephen crane audio

Download The Open Boat Audiobook

Author: Stephen Crane Narrator: Deaver Brown Publisher: Simply Magazine Audio Length: 1.25 hours Release Date: December 2010 Format: Unabridged Audiobook Delivery: Instant Download ISBN: 9781614961147

Table of Contents Show

Download The Open Boat Audiobook
Publisher Description
Customer Reviews
About the Author
About the Narrator
Title Details

Publisher Description

As a well-paid war correspondent, Crane was shipwrecked en route to Cuba in early 1897. He and a small party of passengers spent thirty hours adrift off the coast of Florida, an experience which Crane would later transform into his most famous short story, The Open Boat.

A harrowing tale, H. G. Wells considered this the pinnacle of Crane’s work.

Download and start listening now!

Quotes

“An imperishable gem.”
- H. G. Wells

Customer Reviews

Be the first to write a review about this audiobook!

About the Author

Stephen Crane (1871–1900) was an American novelist, poet, and journalist. He worked as a reporter of slum life in New York and a highly paid war correspondent for newspaper tycoons William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. He wrote many works of fiction, poems, and accounts of war, all well received but none as acclaimed as his 1895 Civil War novel, The Red Badge of Courage. Today he is considered one of the most innovative American writers of the 1890s and one of the founders of literary realism.

About the Narrator

Daniel Goleman, PhD, covered behavioral and brain sciences for the New York Times for twelve years and is codirector of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations at Rutgers University. He is author of various bestselling books, including Emotional Intelligence and The Meditative Mind.

Source: Lit2Go (Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 )
Length: 59 min.
Reader: Lorraine Montgomery

The book: "The Open Boat" tells of four men from the shipwreck of a steamer attempting to make it to the Florida coast in a small dinghy. The story is based on Crane's own experiences of surviving a shipwreck in 1897. The captain, a cook, an oiler, and the correspondent (Crane himself) have to contend with the sea to stay afloat. The story is peculiar in that little is said of the actual shipwreck. Instead, Crane narrows his focus to the four men and their puny surroundings.

The Romanticism popular through most of the 19th century held Nature as a godlike character , ready to reward the just and punish the wicked. Crane, on the other hand, writes in a realistic style, portraying nature as simply an uncaring force. The men in the boat fight against this notion by asserting that they do not deserve this punishment and asking, Job-like, "Why me? Why here?" Although Nature is shown to be unfeeling, Crane contrasts it with the great comradeship between the shipwrecked men. His descriptions of the individuals within the boat are loving portraits, flaws and all. Without this, the story would have carried a despondent view of the smallness of mankind in an vast indifferent universe. Instead, Crane holds out the hope that the brotherhood of man can give our lives significance even when those lives can so unexpectedly be cut short.

Rating: 7/10

The reader: Montgomery has a pleasant alto voice that expresses the weariness, frustration, and occasional humor of Crane's story, but never indulges ruining the piece's naturalism by overacting. Although she reads with an American accent at a slow pace, it is not so slow that it becomes tedious. The recording is well-produced and professional, though there are some slight noises and page-turning in the background. The mp3 files are located on separate pages for each of the seven chapters, which requires the minor, but unnecessary, inconvenience of several extra clicks to access.

(photo "At Humanity's Call" (1895) from the British National Archives via flickr. No copyright restrictions)

Get this free title from:

Free Stuff in These Categories

Find More Titles by

Title Details

Description

Published in 1897, The Open Boat is based on an actual incident from Stephen Crane�s life. While on his way to Cuba, Crane's ship sank off the coast of Florida. Crane and other survivors were stranded at sea for thirty hours. They eventually made their way to safety in a small boat, but one of the men drowned while trying to swim to shore. Crane wrote this story soon after the incident occured.