50 episodes listed below
Two sisters, a surgeon, and a village that talks.
LibriVox readers take Harriet Martineau's Deerbrook chapter by chapter and split the longer chapters into parts. The novel is set in one English village, where sisters Hester and Margaret weigh love and faith while Hope, the local medical man, faces threats against his practice.
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Harriet Martineau's Deerbrook is presented here as a LibriVox recording, a public-domain reading of the novel taken chapter by chapter. Longer chapters are split into parts, so a chapter such as 'The Next Day' comes in two halves. Some episodes begin with the standard LibriVox announcement and a reader credit, and Christine Blashford and Gary Day are among the readers named. After that, the recordings are the novel's own text. It is set in an English village small enough that the gossips take note of a walk in the meadows. Sisters Hester and Margaret are near its centre. So is Hope, a medical man whose practice comes under threat. In 'Deerbrook Commotions', he hears talk of someone who is expected to cure every illness in his place. At the almshouses he hears the threat stated plainly, and stones are thrown at him from behind a hedge. That is the sharp end of the book. The quieter scenes are written with just as much care. In 'The Meadows', children are shown a swan's nest and take turns riding Hope's horse round a meadow. Everyone walks home loaded with cowslips, and the village gossips are satisfied that the stranger ladies enjoyed their walk. Martineau's narrator cares about minds as much as incidents. The narration follows Margaret's calm and her faith closely, along with the jealousy and self-abasement she had put down to vanity, and her happiness at having Philip restored to her. Elsewhere a man lies awake all night, weighing what the next day will decide for Margaret. Hester is described coming through adversity patient and generous toward her foes. Some of the most vivid moments are small and physical. Mrs. Rowland, white as ashes, dances a crying baby in front of a mirror while she waits for the last sparks to go out before the nursemaid comes. Letters matter as well: one reply opens with the writer's bewildered hurt at a letter they cannot understand. The humour is dry rather than broad, as when sewing is called a galling of the fingers and a strain upon the patience. There are also longer reflective passages. In one, a woman living alone reasons that her solitude gives her a duty to keep watch over other people's lives. For a first taste of the range, 'The Meadows' is a good place to start, because wry detail, reflection and village life all appear in the same chapter.
Made for: Suits a listener who enjoys Victorian fiction built around village life and private conscience, and who is happy to follow a long novel through chapter-by-chapter readings.
What sets it apart: It sets a medical man's threatened practice and the shifting opinion of a village beside the sisters' private lives, and the LibriVox format keeps attention on Martineau's own text, with only a brief reader credit around it.
A three volume novel, Deerbrook (1839) is a story of middle class country life with a surgeon hero. Like the later and more famous novel Middlemarch, Deerbrook describes the life of country people in a fictional English town. The Grey family live in one of the loveliest houses in Deerbrook, but a change in their lives is going to take place... The Ibbotson sisters, Hester and Margaret, orphaned distant cousins of Mr. Grey. Like in Jane Austen's novels, we see how the sisters are trying to advance themselves. In Victorian England, the chief way for women to "advance themselves" is to marry well. But will they succeed? And if they succeed, will they be happy?(Summary by Stav Nisser and Wikiped…
One vote costs a surgeon his patients; your taste for village gossip may suddenly need a backbone.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Private hopes, family scrutiny, and moral feeling gather around a moment of romantic certainty.
Mr. Gray's private confidence gives the episode its first tension: he warmly backs Mr. Hope's hopes for Hester, while agreeing that nothing should be spoken of until Hope has tested the ground.
Mr Hope's vote for Mr Laurie turns town gossip into pressure at home.
Chapter 19 follows Mr Hope back to The Hopes after his vote for Mr Laurie begins to cost him in Deerbrook. Sir William's reported oath and Lady Hunter's pointed question about the almshouse appointment push neighbors toward safer political ground, and some start treating Mr Hope…
An uneasy evening absence gives way to Margaret's quiet, stubborn faith in love.
A first night away makes ordinary darkness feel like a household alarm in "The Long Nights." Sidney Gray arrives just after Hope has gone, closing the door before passing on his mother's message: Mr.
A village disturbance grows from absurd rumor into a test of nerve, authority, and household composure.
Deerbrook's unrest is frightening because it starts in the blur of a grievance Margaret calls causeless and ridiculous. Stones may soon strike parlour windows, Mr. Gray weighs special constables, Mr. Rowland wonders about shutters, and Hester waits for word of her husband.
A fever-struck town returns to spring life as grief gives way to reconciliation.
Deerbrook's return to ordinary life carries the mark of everything the fever has taken. When the Greys come back, the main street is grass-grown, cottages look neglected, and the churchyard is full of new graves.
In Harriet Martineau’s Deerbrook chapter “Preparing for Home,” Mr.
Deerbrook’s first chapter follows the Gray family as Hester and Margaret Ibbotson arrive from Birmingham after their father’s death and stay with their distant relation, Mr.
In Deerbrook, Chapter 5 Part 2, Mr.
Chapter 33 of Harriet Martineau’s Deerbrook contrasts the world’s predictable routines with the private struggles of people such as Hester, Margaret, and Philip.
Lady Hunter turns a three-inch charred stick near Deerbrook Church into supposed evidence of a plot to burn it, despite Mr.
In Deerbrook, Chapter 36, Part 2, Margaret Ibbotson writes that she can endure Philip Enderby’s absence but cannot live without his esteem after he has withdrawn his trust.
In Harriet Martineau's Deerbrook chapter "Home," Margaret anxiously awaits Hester's return after a week of absence and reflects on how separation alters the image of someone familiar.
A reading of Chapter 36 of Harriet Martineau's novel Deerbrook, focusing on a sleepless night of reflection and emotional turmoil.
This episode reads Chapter XXVII of Harriet Martineau's novel Deerbrook, focusing on Margaret's emotional recovery and her renewed relationship with Philip.
This episode continues the Victorian novel Deerbrook, focusing on a threat to the surgeon Hope's practice and a stone-throwing incident.
Deerbrook’s “The Meadows” follows Miss Young’s pupils as a holiday sends Mary, Fanny, Matilda Rowland, Sophia, Hester, and Margaret into the meadow to gather cowslips.
Deerbrook, Chapter 39 Part 1, is built around winter robberies, loaded pistols, and the private fear that follows them indoors.
Hester tells Mr.
Mr.
Chapter 46 of Harriet Martineau’s Deerbrook returns to the town after the fever, where grass covers the main street and new graves fill the churchyard.
Harriet Martineau’s Deerbrook, Chapter 19 "Home at the Hopes," follows the fallout from Edward Hope’s vote for Laurie and the way Deerbrook’s tradespeople, Sir William Hunter, and Lady Hunter react.