Hearing an author read his or her own work can be an odd experience, particularly if (as is very often the case) it’s a far cry from how you imagined the work to sound in your head. But it’s also thrilling, enlightening and often rather funny – some authors are definitely much better writers than speakers. Many of the nineteenth and twentieth century’s most famous authors were recorded reciting poetry or reading extracts from their novels, sometimes in a single, unique copy. This week the Cherwell spotlight falls on Robert Browning, the famous Victorian poet and Honorary Fellow of Balliol College. This crackly recording of “How They Brought the Good News From Ghent to Aix”, made in 1889, is one of the very oldest by a major poet.
Unfortunately, having been put rather on the spot, Browning forgot the words to his own poem: “I’m terribly sorry but I cannot remember my own verses.” Nevertheless, it’s easy to sense his admiration for this newly invented machine with the power to capture the human voice, and the shouted ‘signature’ at the end suggests a man unsure if he’s speaking, writing, or both. Browning died just eight months after this recording was made, and when it was played to a gathering of his admirers on the anniversary of his death, it was said to be the first time a person’s voice “had been heard from beyond the grave.” Had the development of the Edison Cylinder been delayed by just one year, the voice of this great poet would have been lost forever.
