The Blue Lagoon: A Romance

A ship burns in the South Pacific, and in the confusion one lifeboat gets away carrying an old sailor and two small children, Dick and Emmeline. They fetch up on an uninhabited island of coral sand and green lagoon water, a paradise with no way off. When the old man is gone, the children are left to raise themselves, with only half-remembered fragments of the adult world to guide them.

Stacpoole's 1908 novel follows them across the years as childhood tips into something neither of them has words for: they grow up, and fall in love, without ever having been told what love is. It is a strange, dreamlike book (part castaway adventure, part meditation on innocence and nature) with an undertow of tension, because paradise never stops being dangerous. The story that inspired the famous films began here, and the original is stranger and sadder than either.

At roughly 64,800 words, The Blue Lagoon: A Romance runs about 7 hours at 1x narration speed. That figure is an estimate based on a typical narration pace. The exact length depends on the voice and the playback speed you choose.

The Blue Lagoon: A Romance is in the public domain, so the complete text is free on Project Gutenberg and LoudReader has the entire Project Gutenberg catalog built in. To listen:

1. Download LoudReader for Mac or iPhone (free, no account).
2. Search for “The Blue Lagoon: A Romance” in the built-in catalog and add it to your library.
3. Press play. A natural offline voice reads the book while each word highlights on screen, and your place is saved between sessions.

LoudReader reads with natural offline voices, so the whole book works on a plane or underground. It is fully on-device and private, your library never leaves your device. Listening is unlimited on the free tier.