Tales of Struggle: A Collection of 23 Storybooks from the Depths of Poverty
Stories of Poverty, Labor, Hunger, Charity, and the Fight for JusticeBy Bernie Babcock, Emile Zola, Francis Brett Young, Sarah Knowles Bolton, George Haw, Maksim Gorky, William Booth, Nassau William Senior, Lyndon B. Johnson, Da Parma Giovanni, Anzia Yezierska, Ruth Russell, Edwin Gifford Lamb, Pansy, Horatio Jr. Alger, Susan Warner, Anna Bartlett Warner, Hesba Stretton, C. E. Bowen, Edward Abbott Sir Parry
Length164h 53m
About this audiobook
Tales of Struggle gathers twenty-three narratives that confront poverty not as an abstraction but as a lived condition shaped by labor, migration, childhood, charity, gender, and social exclusion. Moving between realist fiction, moral tale, social-problem narrative, memoir-inflected observation, and reformist writing, the volume traces a broad literary history of deprivation. Its most compelling pieces juxtapose intimate scenes of hunger and endurance with searching accounts of institutional failure, making struggle at once personal, ethical, and political. The contributors bring together British, American, European, and immigrant perspectives spanning the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Their varied affiliations—with Victorian philanthropy, social investigation, literary naturalism, evangelical reform, working-class representation, and American political discourse—give the collection unusual historical range. Voices attentive to urban hardship and industrial modernity stand beside writers concerned with domestic precarity, children's welfare, and the dignity of those marginalized by class or nationality. Collectively, they reveal how literary forms both reflected and contested prevailing assumptions about deservingness, charity, and social responsibility. This volume is especially recommended for readers of social literature, poverty studies, and reform history. It offers a valuable opportunity to compare styles, periods, and cultural settings within one carefully resonant archive. Students and general readers alike will find in its converging narratives a rich education in empathy, historical consciousness, and the enduring dialogue between storytelling and social justice.
Audiobook details
GenreGeneral Fiction
Length164 hrs 53 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateMar 4, 2025
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1The Lady Poverty: A XIII. Century Allegory
26Jed, the Poorhouse Boy
2The Lady Poverty: A XIII. Century Allegory
27CHAPTER I. JED.
3INTRODUCTION
28CHAPTER VI. MR. FOGSON MAKES UP HIS MIND.
4THE LADY POVERTY
29CHAPTER XI. JED'S FIRST APPEARANCE ON THE STAGE.
5ON THE SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE OF EVANGELICAL POVERTY
30CHAPTER XVII. JED MEETS AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE.
Show all chaptersShow less
6APPENDICES
31CHAPTER XXIV. A STARTLING DISCOVERY.
7Footnote
32CHAPTER XXX. JED ENTERTAINS AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE.
8The Lower Depths
33CHAPTER XXXVII. JANE GILMAN.
9INTRODUCTION
34Cast Upon the Breakers
10ACT ONE.
35CHAPTER I.
11ACT TWO.
36CHAPTER IV.
12ACT THREE.
37CHAPTER VIII.
13ACT FOUR.
38CHAPTER XII.
14Hungry Hearts
39CHAPTER XVI.
15WINGS
40CHAPTER XX.
16HUNGER
41CHAPTER XXIV.
17THE LOST “BEAUTIFULNESS”
42CHAPTER XXVIII.
18THE FREE VACATION HOUSE
43CHAPTER XXXII.
19THE MIRACLE
44CHAPTER XXXVII.
20WHERE LOVERS DREAM
45The Black Diamond
21SOAP AND WATER
46The First Chapter
22“THE FAT OF THE LAND”
47The Fourth Chapter
23MY OWN PEOPLE
48The Sixth Chapter
24HOW I FOUND AMERICA
49The Ninth Chapter
25Jed, the Poorhouse Boy
50The Eleventh Chapter
More from Bernie Babcock, Emile Zola, Francis Brett Young, Sarah Knowles Bolton, George Haw, Maksim Gorky, William Booth, Nassau William Senior, Lyndon B. Johnson, Da Parma Giovanni, Anzia Yezierska, Ruth Russell, Edwin Gifford Lamb, Pansy, Horatio Jr. Alger, Susan Warner, Anna Bartlett Warner, Hesba Stretton, C. E. Bowen, Edward Abbott Sir Parry
WhistlerAnn Patchett10h 45m4.6 (4.6K)$29 · $0.00
Demon CopperheadBarbara Kingsolver21h 3m4.5 (949.4K)$46 · $0.00
To Kill a MockingbirdHarper Lee12h 18m4.5 (7.4M)$29 · $0.00
Remarkably Bright CreaturesShelby Van Pelt11h 17m4.4 (1.7M)$29 · $0.00
War LordBernard Cornwell13h 21m4.6 (33.1K)$33 · $0.00
The Great Gatsby: Original 1925 Edition (An F. Scott Fitzgerald Classic NovelFrancis Scott Fitzgerald4h 45m4.6 (9.3K)$18 · $0.00
Something Like LoveBeverly Jenkins10h 21m4.6 (2.7K)$29 · $0.00
Black History CollectionFrederick Douglass, Harriet Ann Jacobs, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois27h 9m4.6 (2.6K)$18 · $0.00
The Old Man and the Sea (Annotated)Ernest Hemingway4h 27m4.6 (1.4K)$2 · $0.00
White HotIlona Andrews13h 18m4.5 (136.9K)$5 · $0.00
The Ghost by the Billabong (The Matilda Saga, #5)Jackie French14h 58m4.6 (773)$33 · $0.00
Cast in BloodMichelle Sagara16h 35m4.6 (607)$33 · $0.00
The Captain Blood Trilogy (Annotated)Rafael Sabatini29h 20m4.6 (1K)$3 · $0.00
Ship of the Line (Annotated)Cecil Louis Troughton Smith11h 13m4.6 (1K)$2 · $0.00
The George Orwell CollectionGeorge Orwell24h 46m4.5 (14.4K)$12 · $0.00
Time RegainedMarcel Proust15h 38m4.5 (9.2K)$2 · $0.00
Driving ForceElle James4h 58m4.6 (407)$20 · $0.00
When God Calls the HeartBrian Bird, Michelle Cox3h 24m4.6 (439)$10 · $0.00
Five Little IndiansMichelle Good10h 34m4.5 (64.5K)$29 · $0.00
Lolth's WarriorR. A. Salvatore13h 20m4.6 (2.4K)$33 · $0.00