A Chance Acquaintance (Unabridged)
A St. Lawrence Travel Romance of Courtship, Class, and American Literary RealismBy William Dean Howells
Length6h 43m
About this audiobook
William Dean Howells's A Chance Acquaintance (1873) is a finely controlled social novel about the unexpected meeting of Kitty Ellison, a spirited young American, and Miles Arbuton, a cultivated Bostonian whose inherited assumptions expose the class and regional prejudices of post–Civil War America. Set amid travel through New England and Quebec, the narrative transforms tourism, conversation, and romantic hesitation into instruments of moral and social observation. Howells's prose is lucid, ironic, and attentive to the nuances of ordinary speech, anticipating the mature American realism with which he is most closely associated. Rather than relying on melodramatic coincidence, the novel locates drama in manners, self-deception, and the difficult negotiation between feeling and social convention. William Dean Howells (1837–1920), born in Ohio, became one of the central figures of nineteenth-century American letters. His experience as a journalist, diplomat, and influential editor of The Atlantic Monthly brought him into close contact with the literary and social debates of his era. A committed advocate of realism, he sought to represent contemporary life honestly while examining the ethical consequences of privilege, marriage, and cultural prejudice. A Chance Acquaintance reflects his interest in the tensions between provincial America, cosmopolitan aspiration, and inherited status. Readers interested in the emergence of American realism, the history of the nineteenth-century novel, or the literary representation of travel will find this work especially rewarding. Its restrained romance and penetrating social comedy make it an excellent introduction to Howells's humane, skeptical, and quietly radical art.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★★ 3.8 (24)
Includes Goodreads
GenreGeneral Fiction, Literary Classics
Length6 hrs 43 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateJan 2, 2016
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Kitty Alone (Annotated)
2I. Up the Saguenay
3II. Mrs. Ellison's Little Maneuvre
4III. On the Way Back to Quebec
5IV. Mr. Arbuton's Inspiration
Show all chaptersShow less
6V. Mr. Arbuton Makes Himself Agreeable
7VI. A Letter of Kitty's
8VII. Love's Young Dream
9VIII. Next Morning
10IX. Mr. Arbuton's Infatuation
11X. Mr. Arbuton Speaks
12XI. Kitty Answers
13XII. The Picnic at Chateau-Bigot
14XIII. Ordeal
15XIV. Afterwards
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