Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes Audiobook By Robert Louis Stevenson cover art

Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes

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Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes

By: Robert Louis Stevenson
Narrated by: Billy Hartman
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"We are all travelers in the 'wilderness of the world' - travelers with a donkey." So Robert Louis Stevenson wrote to a friend on completing this enchanting account of a journey in rural France in 1878. Alone with his pack-donkey Modestine, and showing total disregard for discomfort, Stevenson relishes to the full his walking tour of the Cevennes. Freedom was the important thing: "I bless God that I was free to wander, free to hope, and free to love." This diary will find many kindred spirits.(P)1994 NAXOS AudioBooks Ltd.; ©1994 NAXOS AudioBooks Ltd. Art & Literature Authors Classics Europe France Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Travel Writing & Commentary Western Europe Fiction Feel-Good Middle Ages

Editorial reviews

Listeners will feel the bright sun and cool breezes and taste the wonders of Gallic food as narrator Billy Hartman recounts master storyteller Robert Louis Stevenson's journey with his beloved pack donkey, the mouse-colored Modestine, through the French countryside. Hartman's rumbling bass and friendly tone add to the trip, which continues to inspire solitary travelers in search of escape, adventure, and friendship. Listeners will want to up their sleeping bags and let Hartman's vocal talents guide them along the same path as Stevenson.
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This was a short travelogue memoir of the author's trip through the Cevennes Mountains in France in 1878. This was a 12 day trek undertaken only by Stevenson and his donkey, Modestine. The reader gets descriptions of the landscapes and the people, oftentimes with humor. Too many long French passages.

Travelogue often with Humor

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Travels with a Donkey is one of the early classic of outdoor literature - it is one of the first book to mention a sleeping bag (of Stevensons' own inventiuon) and early portrays of outdoor travel as a vacation. Like a Victorian house, the book is highly "fillagreed" (ornamented) with untranslated French phrases, unexplained obscure history, ecclesiastical terms, biblical and literary references, and a tighly nuanced Victorian language and Scottish words - you will need either an annotated version or lots of time with an encyclopedia (Wikipedia has both available) to get the most out of it youi will need to work at it, I would not recommend this as light reading, although once you know all the facts, it really is very rewarding. As a spoken text the only downside is it is abridged, but not too badly. The reader has a wonderful Scots accent which brings alive the rythem and sounds of Stevenson's writings, adding a whole new dimension. Highly recommended.

Classic outdoor literature

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