Our Mutual Friend

By: Charles Dickens

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 31 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

A sinister masterpiece, Our Mutual Friend was Dickens' last completed novel. It is perhaps his ultimate vision of a dark, macabre London and the corrupting power of money.

Opening with a father and daughter scavenging for corpses on the Thames, the chilling tale unfolds around drownings, disguises and doubles, violence, murder, and triumphant love. Young John Harmon, presumed killed on his return home to England, is very much alive. The heir to a dust merchant's fortune, he goes to work under an assumed name for his father's current heirs, the amiable, elderly Boffins, who are about to be blackmailed by the unscrupulous one-legged Wegg.

So begins the intrigue in a novel that is quintessentially Dickensian in flavor, in its grotesque caricatures, its rich symbolism, and the astonishing realism of its heroine, Bella Wilfer, among Dickens' most splendid female characters.

(P)1999 Blackstone Audio Inc.

Possibly my favorite dickens book

His last book and possibly my favorites. At least so far. Although I have many more to read..

Lesser known gem

Our Mutual Friend is a treasure not to be missed for Dickens's fans. Wonderful characters. A bit darker story, typical of Dickens's later period. Enjoy!

Mutual pleasure

In this audiobook, Charles Dickens and Robert Whitfield (the narrator) mutually conspire to deliver audio pleasure to the listener. Superbly written and read, the Thames winds through this tale of class difference, greed, social frippery, mystery, murder, financial skullduggery and love. Do yourself a great favour and listen to it. You'll love it.

Nobody narrates Dickens like Vance

What made the experience of listening to Our Mutual Friend the most enjoyable?

Simon Vance emotes really well. And his voice is amazing.

Any additional comments?

I have listened to half a dozen narrators across the various Dickens' audio books. Nobody comes close to Simon Vance.

Wonderful!

This is my favorite Dickens novel, and the narrator does it full justice - especially Fledgeby, Wegg and the Boffins. Highly enjoyable.

If you like Dickens' multi character books...

This story had so many characters that at times I became lost as to who was whom. There were some technical problems with the recording. Several (at least 4-5) times during the 21 hours of reading, there were duplicate lines read and re-read. Assuming these were narration corrections, but were not done very well.

That didn't deter this listener from enjoying listening to Mr. Vance read this story. I can't imagine a better narrator for Dickens. His multi voiced narration and British accent fit the era and language that Charles Dickens wrote in.

Listen to each character's story and how it merges into one larger story throughout the book. And you will see how they are all tied together in the end...no loose ends.

To me, this is not Dickens' best novel, but...

...But, if you can stick it out for the first 10 chapters, it gets better, and I think is well worth the listening to it. Then, by "Book 2", things start getting very interesting.
Of course there is always tragedy in every Dickens story. But this story is full of surprises, and delights, especially toeards the end. And overall, I thoought the ending was one of the most satisfactory surprising, and one of happies endingst of all of Charels Dickens' stories, except for, "A Christmas Carol", and "Nicoluus Nickleby", and perjhaps another one or two in there somewhere.

One of my favorite stories.

Pay close attention to the story. It took me 2 readings to figure out how Me. Harmon drowned and resurrected.

Great story & narration, technical flaws in recording

Always love listening to Dickens and especially narrated by Simon Vance. The only issue with this audio book is the technical production - there are far too many instances where the recording skips and repeats. The publisher should take care to fix it...

Loved it!

This was a wonderful presentation of “Our Mutual Friend.” I read it a long time ago and wanted to revisit it on Audible. I loved the narrators performance… with unique an effective voices for every character!