Harold Frederic has 2 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 2 narrators. The most-rated is The Damnation of Theron Ware.
The Damnation of Theron Ware
Summary
Theron Ware is a promising young Methodist pastor recently assigned to a congregation in the Adirondack Mountains, which Frederic modeled after Utica, New York. His education and experiences have been limited to church society and his strict enforcement of its norms. Theron begins to question the Methodist religion, his role as a minister, and the existence of God. His “illumination” consists of his awakening to new intellectual and artistic experiences embodied by several of his new acquaintances. These figures include the town’s Catholic priest who introduces him to the latest Biblical scholarship, a local man of science, and a local Irish Catholic girl with musical talent and artistic pretensions, with whom Theron becomes infatuated. But ultimately, these characters grow disappointed in Theron, who initially represented an interesting social specimen but whose emergence from naivete and disparagement of his congregation disappoint them. Having lost his vocation and his new friends, Theron departs for Seattle, where he imagines he might use his oratorical skills to enter politics.
Public Domain (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing
The Damnation of Theron Ware
Summary
The Damnation of Theron Ware is widely considered to be one of the top 100 greatest books of all time. The Washington Post compares it to An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser. The novel reveals much about turn-of-the-century provincial America, religious life, and the depressed state of intellectual and artistic culture in small towns. The story deals with the life of a Methodist pastor named Theron Ware who recently moved to small town in upstate New York. Theron has a number of experiences that cause him to begin to question the Methodist religion, his role as a priest and even the very existence of God. Edmund Wilson called this novel, "Frederic's most brilliant achievement."
Public Domain (P)1988 Jimcin Recordings