The Fable of the Bees cover art

The Fable of the Bees

Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for £0.00
£8.99/mo thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Offer ends 31 July 2025 at 23:59 GMT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

The Fable of the Bees

By: Bernard Mandeville
Narrated by: David Timson, Stephanie Racine, Will Kirk, Justin Avoth
Try for £0.00

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends 31 July 2025 23:59 GMT. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £27.99

Buy Now for £27.99

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

The Fable of the Bees—a satirical poem, prose discussion, three essays and six dialogues completed in 1729—exposes human vices but defends them as a necessity within a wealthy society. Mandeville’s bees thrive until they start living by honesty and virtue… then they are impoverished. Mandeville did not play by the rules: he satirized the sins of society but also ridiculed the widespread hypocrisy of deploring these sins whilst reaping their benefits. He and his work were attacked for the rest of the century. The wicked bees’ comeuppance is not for their vices—society’s accepted moral code—but, instead, for the folly of denying them. There is no judgement on whether a rich society is superior to a poor one; Mandeville simply analyses, with incorrigible playfulness, the status quo as he sees it. The fascination of his arguments and the ensuing controversy have caught and influenced philosophers and thinkers ever since.

Includes Mandeville’s complete text (both Parts 1 and 2), in a multi-voice recording headed by the outstanding David Timson.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

Public Domain (P)2024 Naxos AudioBooks UK Ltd.
Essays Ethics & Morality European Philosophy Poetry World Literature Witty

Listeners also enjoyed...

Kaput cover art
Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary cover art
The History of England, Volume 1 cover art
The Anatomy of Melancholy cover art
The Fyodor Dostoyevsky Complete Collection cover art
Annals cover art
The Essential Hayek cover art
Masters of the Universe cover art
The Gallic War cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
I didn’t know the book at all, but it appears to be important and influential. The superb David Timson reads the main part, with several other great voice actors performing the later dialogues. Enjoyable and thought-provoking.

A revelation …superbly produced and performed

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