The Original Audiobook and How It All Began

New York City, 1952

Two bright, determined 22-year-olds, Barbara Cohen and Marianne Roney, sit wedged among the audience at the 92nd Street Y, enthralled by Dylan Thomas reading his poetry. They’d studied ancient Greek and humanities at Hunter College, and were now working in publishing and record liner notes - dreaming of doing something more.

That evening, an idea sparked. What if Thomas’s voice - his actual voice - could travel beyond the Y and into living rooms? The idea felt almost absurd. They had no funding, no studio, and no precedent. But they had curiosity and courage.

The Bold Pitch

Using only their initials (“B. Cohen and M. Roney”) so Thomas wouldn’t dismiss them as two young women, they snuck a note backstage. His agent redirected them to call him at 4:30 am at the Chelsea Hotel. It worked - Thomas answered.

They invited him to lunch at the “Little Shrimp” alongside his wary wife, Caitlin. Over shared humour and storytelling - Thomas later said Barbara “punned him under the table” - he agreed: $500 in advance and 10% of royalties.

Recording at Steinway Hall

Booking a session at Steinway Hall, they showed up only to hear, “I’ve left my books at the hotel.” Still, they prevailed - pressed play and captured Thomas reading five poems, including Do Not Go Gentle - a sinuous Welsh timbre that struck them as orchestral, unexpected, electric.

They’d filled nearly the whole LP - but not quite. On a hunch, Thomas mentioned an obscure prose piece he’d written called A Child’s Christmas in Wales. Marianne rushed out to Harper’s Bazaar, borrowed the one copy they had on file, sat him back in front of the mic - and recorded it in a single take. That single-take reading helped shape what many consider the original audiobook.

Launching Caedmon

The recording launched Caedmon Records—named after an 8th-century English poet with the tagline “A Third Dimension for the Printed Page.”  They hustled from an office in a dilapidated Manhattan loft, using a wheelbarrow to collect records from the RCA plant.

Unexpectedly, the album soared. Thomas’s voice carried posthumously: after his death in 1953 - purportedly following 18 whiskies - sales surged. A Child’s Christmas in Wales sold around 400,000 copies in the 1950s. Caedmon’s Thomas catalogue reached 1.5 million units overall.

Building a Spoken Word Empire

Over the next decade, Caedmon recorded nearly 200 titles - from Under Milk Wood (with Thomas himself, 1953) to Ezra Pound in a psychiatric hospital, J.R.R. Tolkien in Elvish, and Faulkner pausing during a recording to check a baseball score.

Actors like Ralph Richardson, Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, and Ruby Dee interpreted everything from Keats to Kipling. They recorded Inuit legends, Japanese Noh theatre, interviews with Frank Lloyd Wright, and even chased down tapes of Hemingway.

Indie Author Lessons

• Voice as emotional architecture – Thomas reading his own work evoked a power that no narrator could match. Your voice matters - whether you narrate or select someone who captures your tone and soul.

• Serendipity is valid strategy – That Christmas story was an “afterthought,” yet it became legend. Be ready to pivot if inspiration strikes mid-process.

• Fearless hustle lasts – No studio? No problem. Need records? Wheelbarrow them yourself. Sometimes grit beats budgets.

• Define your “third dimension” – Caedmon didn’t just put text on tape. They added depth, sound, emotion and presence. Your audiobook should enhance the printed word, not just read it.

Still Listenable Today

You can hear that original 1952 performance:

• HarperAudio reissues the Thomas album.

• It’s listed in the National Recording Registry (2008) and housed at the Library of Congress.

• Snippets appear in NPR retrospectives.

It’s 15 minutes of snowy childhood memory - rough, poignant, absolutely alive.

What indie authors can learn from the original audiobook

That’s the real beginning: two curious young women, a poet, a borrowed manuscript - and magic. Their experiment grew into an empire - and eventually a billion-pound industry.

If you’re an indie author wondering how your story could sound aloud, take a breath. Start with why your book deserves more than words on a page. Let voice, emotion, structure - and a dash of boldness - bring it to life.

At Indie Audiobook Productions, we help authors do just that - guiding on narration, pacing, editing, production, all without the stress or jargon. Your story deserves its own third dimension.

Ready? Visit indieaudiobookproductions.co.uk to explore your next step.