The Piazza Tales


Read by John Greenman

(3.8 stars; 8 reviews)

A collection of six short stories by American writer Herman Melville, published in May 1856. Except for the newly written title story, "The Piazza," all of the stories had appeared in Putnam's Monthly between 1853 and 1855. The collection includes what has long been regarded as three of Melville's most important achievements in the genre of short fiction, "Bartleby, the Scrivener", "Benito Cereno", and "The Encantadas", his sketches of the Galápagos Islands. (Billy Budd, arguably his greatest piece of short fiction, would remain unpublished in his lifetime.) One should note that the era's prevalent racism occasionally surfaces, as in describing blacks as "indisputable inferiors", to be found in "Benito Cereno". (Summary by John Greenman) (9 hr 45 min)

Chapters

Chapter 1 - The Piazza 41:25 Read by John Greenman
Chapter 2A - Bartleby Part 1 57:51 Read by John Greenman
Chapter 2B - Bartleby Part 2 45:02 Read by John Greenman
Chapter 3A - Benito Cereno Part 1 1:01:48 Read by John Greenman
Chapter 3B - Benito Cereno Part 2 1:05:25 Read by John Greenman
Chapter 3C - Benito Cereno Part 3 53:13 Read by John Greenman
Chapter 3D - Benito Cereno Part 4 44:06 Read by John Greenman
Chapter 4 - The Lightning-Rod Man 19:17 Read by John Greenman
Chapter 5-A - The Encantadas - Sketch First. The Isles at Large. 14:37 Read by John Greenman
Chapter 5-B - The Encantadas - Sketch Second. Two Sides to a Tortoise 10:46 Read by John Greenman
Chapter 5-C - The Encantadas - Sketch Third. Rock Rodondo 13:31 Read by John Greenman
Chapter 5-D - The Encantadas - Sketch Fourth. A Pisgah View from the Rock. 18:15 Read by John Greenman
Chapter 5-E - The Encantadas - Sketch Fifth. The Frigate, and the Flyaway. 4:20 Read by John Greenman
Chapter 5-F - The Encantadas - Sketch Sixth. Barrington Isle and the Buccaneers. 8:15 Read by John Greenman
Chapter 5-G - The Encantadas - Sketch Seventh. Charles's Isle and the Dog-King. 13:36 Read by John Greenman
Chapter 5-H - The Encantadas - Sketch Eighth. Norfolk Isle and the Chola Widow. 37:04 Read by John Greenman
Chapter 5-I - The Encantadas - Sketch Ninth. Hood's Isle and the Hermit Oberlus. 25:13 Read by John Greenman
Chapter 5-J - The Encantadas - Sketch Tenth. Runaways, Castaways, Solitaries, G… 10:24 Read by John Greenman
Chapter 6 - The Bell-Tower 41:20 Read by John Greenman

Reviews

An excellent collection of stories


(5 stars)

A great collection of short stories by Melville, but a side of the author I wasn't aware of. Mr John Greenman does a great job of story telling and is one of my favorite readers at LibriVox. I highly recommend it.