The Talking Handkerchief, and Other Stories


Read by LibriVox Volunteers

(3.3 stars; 6 reviews)

This is a collection of 22 stories of action and adventure. We follow the narrators as they escape pirates and cannibals, overcome natural disasters, and are attacked by wild animals. Cunning plans are executed and daring escapes are accomplished, all in the particular style of the 19th century adventure story.
Thomas Knox was an author who had travelled around the world by the time he wrote the stories in this volume, and who was no stranger to any of the geographic areas in which he set his stories. - Summary by Carolin (6 hr 4 min)

Chapters

The Talking Handkerchief 37:54 Read by Michael F. Plueger Sr.
Frozen to an Ice-Floe 15:06 Read by Michael F. Plueger Sr.
Captured by Cannibals 19:30 Read by Michael F. Plueger Sr.
In a Shark's Mouth 13:01 Read by DannyHauger
Beset by Chinese Pirates 16:10 Read by Mike Pelton
Jugglers of the Orient 21:02 Read by Mike Pelton
The Serf's Revenge 17:15 Read by Mike Pelton
The Head-Hunters of Borneo 14:56 Read by Mike Pelton
A Fight with a Tiger 9:44 Read by DannyHauger
Caught in a Typhoon 10:48 Read by Paezra
Chased by Wolves 19:46 Read by Matthew Thompson
Betrayed by a Mirage 12:20 Read by Anthony Castellani
To the Great Wall of China 14:38 Read by ToddHW
A Corroboree in Australia 15:26 Read by Lynda Marie Neilson
Treed by an Elephant 12:34 Read by Lynda Marie Neilson
Stopped by Russian Robbers 18:46 Read by Lynda Marie Neilson
A Battle with a Kangaroo 15:06 Read by Lynda Marie Neilson
A Russian Elopement 14:28 Read by Kalynda
Chased by Malay Pirates 10:30 Read by NathanTroyer
An Exile's Escape from Siberia 15:38 Read by Lynda Marie Neilson
Oriental Thieves 14:16 Read by Lynda Marie Neilson
A Chemical Detective 25:18 Read by Lynda Marie Neilson

Reviews

Great book with various narrators of mixed quality


(4 stars)

This book has some excellent stories of adventure in Asia, the Pacific and Russia during the Nineteenth Century. The author’s writing is exciting. However, some of the narrators are not particularly good and although the first narrator is quite good, the flagship story (‘The Talking Handkerchief’) suffers from poor audio equipment. It is certainly worth a listen though. The book’s format as an anthology means that readers can skip any narrators or stories that aren’t to the reader’s liking with ease.


(3 stars)

Librivox is a great and noble concept, but the reality of its execution is often a letdown. Allowing pretty much anybody to read these works makes for extremely variable results. Many of these stories are exciting and are of the type not often found in contemporary memoirs. But the quality of the reading varies from pretty decent to atrocious. Lynda Marie Nelson is particularly bad: Her tone is monotonous, she frequently halts and stumbles over words as if she were reading them for the first time, and she absolutely mangles foreign words and place names to the point of their being barely recognizable. If you're going to read for Librivox, the least you can do is read the text first before you record it, and take the trouble to learn the correct pronunciation of unfamiliar words and place names. Lynda appears to have done neither. The sound quality of her recordings is also terrible. If it were up to me I'd reject her readings out of hand, but perhaps Librivox operates on the beggars-can't-be-choosers principle.