Spoon River Anthology

by Edgar Lee Masters Narrated by Patrick Fraley, Edward Asner, A full cast

Overview

Deemed “essential” in the canon of American literature, this audiobook masterpiece performed in its entirety by a full cast of fifty makes the classic accessible to everyone.

From a cemetery in a fictional mid-American town, the dead speak the truths about their lives. Some speak of hardships and sordid affairs, while others speak of their simple, honest, happy lives. Some are elderly and others are youthful or children, but mortality has claimed them all. Their voices reach us deeply-alternately plaintive, anguished, enigmatic, angry, contemptuous, and comedic, evoking themes of love, hope, disappointment, despair, and abiding faith. As the Spoon River residents examine their lives, they invite us to do the same.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169868968
Publisher:	Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date:	03/20/2013
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Spoon River Anthology

The Hill

Where are Elmer, Herman, Bert, Tom and Charley, The weak of will, the strong of arm, the clown, the boozer, the fighter? All, all, are sleeping on the hill.

 

One passed in a fever, One was burned in a mine, One was killed in a brawl, One died in a jail, One fell from a bridge toiling for children and wife—All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill.

 

Where are Ella, Kate, Mag, Lizzie and Edith, The tender heart, the simple soul, the loud, the proud, the happy one?—All, all, are sleeping on the hill.

 

One died in shameful child-birth, One of a thwarted love, One at the hands of a brute in a brothel, One of a broken pride, in the search for heart's desire, One after life in far-away London and Paris Was brought to her little space by Ella and Kate and Mag—All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill.Where are Uncle Isaac and Aunt Emily, And old Towny Kincaid and Sevigne Houghton, And Major Walker who had talked With venerable men of the revolution?—All, all, are sleeping on the hill.

 

They brought them dead sons from the war, And daughters whom life had crushed, And their children fatherless, crying—All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill.

 

Where is Old Fiddle: Jones Who played with life all his ninety years, Braving the sleet with bared breast, Drinking, rioting, thinking neither of wife nor kin, Nor gold, nor love, nor heaven? Lo! he babbles of the fish-frys of long ago, Of the horse-races of long ago at Clary's Grove, Of what Abe Lincoln said One time at Springfield.

All new material in this edition copyright © 1996 by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

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