The Public Domain Podcast

Great works hand picked for you from the Public Domain and read out loud in a weekly podcast. Authors include Mark Twain, Jules Verne, Edgar Allen Poe and many others. The website also includes links to public domain resources & topics of interest to literary and audiobook fans.

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Monday, August 29, 2005

Corrected version of Part 1 of "The Master of the World"

First off my apologies to those of you who had already downloaded PDP #6 prior to 4:15 pm PST. That file had some overlapping tracks in it about midway through the reading.

I've since deleted that file and placed the corrected file links in the original post. I'm hesitant to repost it because I think that would make your podcatcher software download the same file twice.

However, for the benefit of those who only read my podcast through an RSS reader here is the link to the original post about the novel which contains the corrected link: http://publicdomainpodcast.blogspot.com/2005/08/pdp-6-master-of-world-by-jules-verne.html

~ e

PDP #6 - "The Master of the World" by Jules Verne, Part 1

2nd EDIT: If you downloaded this file before 4:15 pm PST please redownload for the corrected version.

Here we go, the first novel attempted at The Public Domain Podcast! EDIT: Here is the corrected file to manually download. I've chosen this science fiction adventure by Jules Verne for the purpose. Its protagonist, John Strock, "head inspector in the federal police department at Washington" is charged with getting to the bottom of some very unusual occurences happening in the twentieth century US.

I had not read this before and found myself drawn in by the first few chapters to find out more about this "Master of the World".

This podcast contains Chapters 1: "What Happened in the Mountains" and 2: "I Reach Morganton" and is approximately 26 minutes long.

The entire novel is comprised of 18 chapters. Some are shorter than others but I will most likely be doing 2-3 chapters per podcast.

Administrative Feedback Needed

After some research on spoken word recording, I decided to record this podcast at a lower setting, 32 kbps, so the mp3 file size is quite small, less than 10 Mb. Let me know if you notice a difference in the recording quality or have other issues with the file and would like me to go back to my other settings.

Bonus Podcast?

I'm thinking of offering another podcast during the weeks in which I'm reading part of a novel so folks who aren't interested in that particular novel won't have to wait 4 weeks to hear something else. I was thinking of choosing very short stories for the bonus podcasts, nothing too long since I'll have my hands full with the novel. Would that be a good idea? Or would it mess folks up who have scheduled to check my feed only once a week?

I thought perhaps this bonus podcast could be offered on the Thursday of the week that I do novels but I'm open to suggestions.

~ e

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Monday, August 22, 2005

PDP #5 - "After Twenty Years" by O. Henry

This short story has a distinct O. Henry turn to it. It clocks in as the shortest podcast to date at 6 minutes 45 seconds. I had another project in mind but I went out of town and came back with a sore throat so I've put that off until later.

I hope you enjoy the story and a big welcome to the new subscribers!

You can manually download the podcast here.

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Monday, August 15, 2005

PDP #4 - "The Fatal Cradle" by Wilkie Collins

This short story was written by a contemporary and friend of Charles Dickens. No need to fear, it's not a gory tale despite the title but is really quite humorous.

In order to not break up the drama I've slightly exceeded the 30 minute mark and this podcast is 42 minutes long. Please give it a listen though, if anything I think you'll find amusement in some of the accents I tried to reproduce.

If you'd like to manually download the file it can be found here.

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Friday, August 12, 2005

Thinking of Switching to Mondays

I'm considering changing the release of the regular podcasts to Mondays instead of Sundays. As it is I am only getting them up by the evening my time (Pacific Standard) so I'd like to give myself a little leeway and have them live Monday instead.

If you have any objections please let me know.

Sunday, August 07, 2005

PDP #3 - "A Dog's Tale" by Mark Twain

This week's podcast can be manually downloaded here. Or use this link to paste into the subscription field of your podcast app.

I began The Public Domain Podcast series with a tale of a cat and have decided to even the count with this tale of a dog. Told from the dog's point of view it gives you Twain's view on animal rights.

The podcast is approximately 20 minutes and 40 seconds and is about 19 Mb in size. A small snippet of music is used under the "outro". It is an excerpt from the song Goes Nowhere by Michelle Welsh from her album Sleep-Awake and was found from Staccato Music and used with permission following the Creative Commons agreement.

I hope you enjoy it!

~ e

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