Lord of the World cover art

Lord of the World

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Try for £0.00
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Lord of the World

By: Robert Hugh Benson
Narrated by: Simon Vance
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £17.99

Buy Now for £17.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Secular humanism has triumphed. Everything the late Victorians and Edwardians believed would bring human happiness has been achieved: Technology has made it so no one needs to work for a living, the social sciences ensure a smooth-running social order, and, in the name of tolerance, religious beliefs have been uprooted and eliminated except for a single holdout - a largely discredited and rapidly shrinking Catholic Church. Yet people are unhappy.

What has been created is a sterile world of crass materialism, a world without spiritual dimension, a world where people daily choose legalized euthanasia over the emptiness of existence. Out of this culture of despair, there arises a charismatic leader: Julian Felsenburgh. Soon the masses are in Felsenburgh's thrall, and he becomes leader of the world. But in their eagerness for change, have the citizens of the world embraced the Antichrist and hastened the end of days?

Father Percy Franklin remains a bastion of stability, even as the Catholic Church disintegrates around him. Finally outlawed and driven underground, it is only this small and shrinking church that stands against the "Lord of the World".

Public Domain (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Classics Drama & Plays European
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

Murder in the 33rd Degree cover art
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich cover art
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World cover art
Last Testament cover art
The Advocate cover art
Brave New World cover art
Holy Terrors cover art
Benedict XVI: A Life, Volume One cover art
The Listener and Other Stories cover art
Saint Thomas Aquinas cover art
Noah Primeval cover art
The Screwtape Letters cover art
Tipperary cover art
Introduction to the Spiritual Life cover art
The Third Secret cover art
The Sayings of the Holy Desert Fathers cover art

What listeners say about Lord of the World

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    24
  • 4 Stars
    7
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    23
  • 4 Stars
    7
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    24
  • 4 Stars
    7
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    1

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Incredible

This historical novel reminds me of Damian North’s trilogy, Pontifex Maximus … a brilliant dystopian novel from the Catholic / Christian point of view. A classic, recommended by Pope Francis and Pope Benedict.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent

Excellent. Muddled. Confusing. This book will be a troubling and hard to follow piece of fantasy for those who like their sci-fi crisp or their mysticism worldly; moreover, I suspect that this mix is exactly what Benson intended. Don't look for Verne or Wells, Huxley or Heinlein, for what lies before you is a world of Bingen and Eckhart, Dante, Ferrer and Loyola; it is not for faint hearts or easy riders, yet it is all too human. Simon Vance does well with what has to be an alien format for any modern narrator, in a story that is at once trite but also troubling. So, suspend disbelief, and let the fantastic do its work - sneering at you even more than you may want to sneer at it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

I love this book

This book is brilliantly written, imaginatively constructed and prophetic in nature. I highly recommend this book to anyone.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Must if you're Catholic

If you're Catholic and concerned about current events this will speak to you, because even though it was written in 1907 it's on the nose in relation to post-modern secular trends. If you're not Catholic or religious in any way then you probably won't enjoy it. It was written by a Priest and not a professional author, so literary critics won't like its overly descriptive prose and lack of character development etc. But it's not meant to be a work of literary art, it's meant to be a meditation on faith and what that means in the modern world

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Prophetic and beautifully written.

To be read and re read. There are parts that perhaps only catholics will really understand, but this is an insightful vision of the future for all open-minded readers. I really liked this narration too; it was a clear, articulate and thoughtful reading.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Difficult but worth it

The first time I had to stop and recalibrate my ears. The second listen - I couldn’t stop listening.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Wooden, dogmatic, unconvincing, indigestible

As a vision of what religion can do to save humanity it is uninviting and completely unconvincing.
Written as a vehicle to convey ideas, and without literary skills, the story is a reactionary denunciation of modernity with characters as flat and non-human as Ayn Rand's stock puppets. The elitist and violent values advocated to stem the encroachment of Commie materialism include the pope's visionary reintroduction of the death penalty, a wailing at high rates of tax on inherited wealth compared to earned wealth. This desolate and depressing view of humanity is hardly going to serve as a recruiting sergeant for the Catholic church.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful