Caedmon Audio


Caedmon Audio and HarperCollins Audio are record label imprints of HarperCollins Publishers that specialize in audiobooks and other literary content. Formerly Caedmon Records, its marketing tag-line was Caedmon: a Third Dimension for the Printed Page. The name changed when the label switched to CD-only production.
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Caedmon history

Caedmon Records was a pioneer in the audiobook business, it was the first company to sell spoken-word recordings to the public and has been called the seed of the audiobook industry. Caedmon was founded in New York in 1952 by college graduates Barbara Holdridge and Marianne Roney.
The label's first release was a collection of poems by Dylan Thomas as read by the author. The B-side contained A Child's Christmas in Wales, which was added as an afterthought; the story was obscure and Thomas himself could not remember its title when asked what to use to fill up the LP's B-side. However, this recording went on to become one of his most loved works, and launched Caedmon as a successful company. The original 1952 recording was a 2008 selection for the United States National Recording Registry, stating it is "credited with launching the audiobook industry in the United States".
The company went on to record other notable writers reading their own works, such as W. H. Auden, Robert Frost, T. S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and many more. The label expanded further to encompass other types of spoken-word recordings, including children's stories, speeches, plus English- and foreign-language classics. Theater performances were also staged for the label, starring either the Shakespeare Recording Society or the Theatre Recording Society, depending on the playwright. These performances included many famous actors and actresses, including Anthony Quayle, Claire Bloom, Richard Burton, Albert Finney, John Gielgud, Siobhán McKenna, Michael Redgrave, Vanessa Redgrave, Felix Aylmer, Paul Scofield, Alec McCowen, Donald Pleasence, Ralph Richardson, Max Adrian, and Maggie Smith, among others. Other notable readers for the label included Vincent Price, Basil Rathbone, and Louis Jourdan.
Raytheon, which also owned D. C. Heath and Company, bought Caedmon in 1971. Harper & Row purchased the label in 1987.

Selected discography

This partial discography provides an idea of the range of literary and acting talent that Caedmon was able to record and distribute.Dylan Thomas Reading, Volume 1 Laurence Olivier Thomas Mann Reading Tennessee Williams Reading Katherine Anne Porter Reading Downward Path Catcher in the Rye Chaucer: Nun's Priest's, Pardoner's Tales Archibald MacLeish Reading Eudora Welty Reading Peter Marshall Speaks Sean O'Casey Reading Osbert Sitwell Reading Israel is Born Ogden Nash Reading Edith Sitwell Reading e. e. cummings Reading Dylan Thomas Reading, Volume 2 W. H. Auden Reading Colette Reading Hearing Poetry, Volume 1 Hearing Poetry, Volume 2 The Rubiyat Millay Poetry Marianne Moore Reading Wordsworth Poetry Mark Twain Edgar Allan Poe Baudelaire Reading, Wellsprings of Drama Everyman The Second Shepherd's Play Dr. Faustus Greek Prose and Poetry William Faulkner Reading Frank O'Connor Reading Leaves of Grass, Volume 1 Just So Stories, Volume 1 Conrade Aiken Reading Red Badge of Courage Vachel Lindsay Reading Poetry of Byron Dylan Thomas Reading, Volume 3 Wilde Fairy Tales T. S. Eliot Reading Walter de la Mare Reading William Carlos Williams Reading Poetry of Browning, Volume 1 17th Century Poetry Gertrude Stein Reading Sermons of Donne Book of Judith, Ruth Psalms and David Cambridge Treasury of English Prose: Malory to Donne, Volume 1 Cambridge Treasury of English Prose: Burton to Johnson, Volume 2 Cambridge Treasury of English Prose: Defoe to Burke, Volume 3 Cambridge Treasury of English Prose: Austen to Bronte, Volume 4 Cambridge Treasury of English Prose: Dickens to Butler, Volume 5 Poetry of Shelley Robert Frost Reading Dylan Thomas Reading, Volume 4 Grimm's Fairy Tales Joyce's Ulysses Frank Lloyd Wright Speaking Diego Rivera Speaking Robert Graves Reading Lorca Wallace Stevens Reading Noel Coward Duologies Ecclesiastes E. B. Browning Sonnets/Barretts of Wimpole Street German Lyric Poetry Andersen Fairy Tales Reluctant Dragon Pied Piper/Hunting of the Snark The Book of Job Child's Garden of Verses Nonsense Verse Juan Ramon Jimenez Reading Poetry of Tennyson Poetry of Yeats Henry Mencken Speaking Jean Cocteau Reading Stephen Spender Reading Song of Songs/Heloise & Abelard Joyce's Finnegans Wake Poetry of Keats Just So Stories, Volume 2 Rootabaga Stories Moll Flanders Mother Goose Poetry of Coleridge Boswell's London Journal Apple Cart and Poems by Noël Coward Picture of Dorian Gray Genesis Alice in Wonderland Through the Looking Glass Gulliver's Travels Kipling's Jungle Books: How Fear Came The Bab Ballads of WS Gilbert and The Cautionary Tales by Hilaire Belloc,, Ezra Pound Reading