The Souls of Black Folk (1903)

W. E. B. Du Bois, toriasuncle · 1903 · 479 min

Fourteen essays and one short story, each headed by a bar of music from the spirituals — the "sorrow songs" the last chapter is about — and between them the book that gave the twentieth century its terms: "the problem of the color-line", "double-consciousness", the veil. Du Bois was a Harvard-trained sociologist and writes like one when he wants to, then turns and writes the death of his infant son in a chapter you will not get through unmoved. The argument with Booker T. Washington in chapter three is the hinge of the whole era's politics, made in public and in print.

The one complete reading LibriVox holds is a solo by a reader credited under a handle, and the site describes it as "read and performed" — it is a reading, not a dramatisation, but the reader commits. Eight hours. Pairs with the Douglass Narrative above it on the shelf: sixty years apart, the same country.

Chosen reading: LibriVox solo production, read by toriasuncle; Internet Archive item souls_of_black_folk_librivox — 18 files, 460 MB, 7 h 59 min total, catalogued 2007-04-07.

The 18 files are the Forethought, the fourteen chapters and the Afterthought, with four long chapters (2, 7, 8, 9) split into two parts each (souls_of_black_folk_02-1_du_bois.mp3, 02-2 …). Checked by hand against the item's section titles: every chapter present, every part present, running order correct once sorted. This is the only complete reading of the title in the collection, so there is no alternate.

Published on the source's record rather than a listen-through (owner decision, 2026-08-26): LibriVox proof-listens every completed project chapter by chapter before release, and the three pilots' full listens turned up nothing their project pages had not already said — so the chapter table and byte check above are the verification, and the first listener who finds a fault in this reading should write to the Den.

Two layers, both clear:

• The book. Published 1903 by A. C. McClurg, Chicago; inside the pre-1931 line, and the US term for a 1903 publication has fully run regardless of renewal. Du Bois died in 1963, which matters nowhere the site publishes from.
• The narration. LibriVox dedicates its recordings to the public domain; the item carries LibriVox's public-domain dedication. Recorded 2007 by the reader credited on the project page as toriasuncle.