It’s LibriVox’s 9th anniversary this month! Let’s celebrate with our contributors and listeners from all over the world with 10 gems from our catalogue.
In April 1884, a man started out from San Francisco on his trusty Ordinary on a journey Around the World on a Bicycle. He ended his trip after cycling about 13500 miles in December 1886 in Yokohama. Read the account of Thomas Stevens about his voyage.
Much less time for sightseeing had Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman, a journalist writing under the name of Nellie Bly. She made her trip Around the World In 72 Days, thus beating Jules Verne’s famous character just as she had set out to do.
None of the two found the passage to the Earth’s center though, and brought news from the giants living there. This was left to a Norwegian sailor who tells his story about The Smoky God or A Voyage To the Inner World in Willis George Emerson’s novel.
A journey of different nature has been written by Marie Corelli. The heroine of A Romance of Two Worlds suffers from an illness that almost drives her to suicide. However, during a prescribed holiday she begins to have visions of divine origin that change her life for good.
A similar experience has the protagonist of Henry Fielding’s novel A Journey From This World to the Next, who dies in the first sentence. He then wanders through afterlife, which, unfortunately, seems to be just a continuation of life on Earth.
Well, The Way Of the World never changes, especially when it comes to love. Mirabell wants to marry Millamant, but first he has to seek her aunt’s approval, who would rather see her nephew marry Millamant… Find out if the right ones get together in the end of the comedy from the 1700’s by William Congreve.
G. K. Chesterton knows exactly What’s Wrong With the World: “I am”, he confesses, but despite that, he still felt compelled to write a number of essays on the topic, covering many more aspects of this difficult issue – even optimism!
Maybe the application of outside ideas would help to cure the world from evils? William Shuler Harris covers Life In a Thousand Worlds and talks about how alien philosophy from other worlds could help to fix the Earth’s problems.
Sergeant Bellews is not sure whether the signals that blow up transmitters all over the planet are of alien origin. Still, the inventor is taking up the fight – will he be able to construct The Machine that Saved the World in time in the novella by Murray Leinster?
In the end, only we ourselves can make a this a better world. Stopping to fight each other would be a good start, after all, we all feel the same. Read the entries of our First World War Centenary Poetry Collection – would you know where the various authors came from?
Enjoy – and Happy 9th Anniversary, LibriVox!