a very early audio book

I've been reading some very early science fiction .. specifically L'Autre Monde ou Les États et Empires de la Lune -- Other Worlds -
The Society and Government of the Moon by Cyrano de Bergerac (yes - the Cyrano de Bergerac). Through the magic public domain here is a translation of part of it. (purists like Lynn can find the French version online)

We are talking about 1650 scifi here.. What struck me was the concept of audio recording. Until real audio recordings happened in the Edison era, attempts were focused on reproducing specific sounds separately ... a duck automata would make duck sounds, a piano roll would make piano sounds ... the concept that sound was just a series of waves and therefore something that could be reproduced generally was not common.

When I opened a box, I found inside something made of metal, somewhat like our clocks, full of an endless number of little springs and tiny machines. It was indeed a book, but it was a miraculous one that had no pages or printed letters. It was a book to be read not with eyes but with ears. When anyone wants to read, he winds up the machine with a large number of keys of all kinds. Then he turns the indicator to the chapter he wants to listen to. As though from the mouth of a person or a musical instrument come all the distinct and different sounds that the upper-class Moon-beings use in their language.

When I thought about this marvelous way of making books, I was no longer surprised that the young people of that country know more at the age of sixteen or eighteen than the greybeards of our world. They can read as soon as they can talk and are never at a loss for reading material. In their rooms, on walks, in town, during voyages, on foot or on horseback, they can have thirty books in their pockets or hanging on the pommels of their saddles. They need only wind a spring to hear one or more chapters or a whole book, if they wish. Thus you always have with you all the great men, both living and dead, who speak to you in their own voices.

Comments

[Rolf - Audio Books Fan]

This is amazing. Makes you think of the concept of music automatons, these lovely boxes that play a tune when you wind them up and then open the lid ( http://www.reuge.com/ ).
Nowadays audiobooks are just a bunch of 1's and 0's, digitally compressed into MP3 format, ready to download and te be heared from players that are not much larger than a packet of cigarettes.

[Cara Fletcher]

I think it's great that a lot of people are listenning to audio books.They are a great substition to books and can help people expand their imagination.