The Pickwick Papers, Volume 1

By: Charles Dickens

Narrated by: Patrick Tull

Length: 17 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

Meet Mr. Samuel Pickwick, luminous presence, general chairman and member of the Pickwick Club, an organization devoted to meeting good friends, sharing good stories and spreading good cheer. Join Mr. Pickwick and his friends Mr. Snodgrass, Mr. Jingle and all the rest in Part One of their adventures, which include: the first day's journey, an old-fashioned card party, the action of Bardell against Pickwick, and Christmas.

Public Domain (P)1999 Recorded Books

Perfect narrator, delightfully comic

Patrick Tull is a perfect narrator for this book: his bluff, blustery, energetic style matches Dickens' comic prose to a T. It's an episodic book, with a very thin overarching framework: travels and adventures (mostly misadventures) of Mr Pickwick, his fellow club members, and the manservant to end all manservants, Sam Weller (or Veller as he would say). Every so often Dickens adds a tale, usually a ghost story or some other macabre event, related verbally or on paper by one of the participants. It's Dickens at his absolute comic best: high spirits, wacky characters, impossible misunderstandings all around; and it all ends well in this best of all possible worlds. Tull's many voices, giving brisk life to every character, are astonishing.

Masterly Reading of a Timeless Comedy

If you could sum up The Pickwick Papers, Volume 1 in three words, what would they be?

Listen again, again.

What did you like best about this story?

Pickwick Papers is Dickens reveling in the human comedy minus the agenda of social reform found his other novels. IMHO comedy is far and away the most difficult of genres, and this novel, being a comedy from start to finish, showcases Dickens extraordinary skill as a writer and imaginative creator of character. I read Pickwick Papers when I was in my teens, and it turned me into a lifetime Dickens' fan. Patrick Tull, was THE narrator for this novel; he cannot be equaled for highlighting every comic moment in this book.

Which scene was your favorite?

All the Christmas scenes

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Laughed out loud until tears came into my eyes

Read the way it was meant to be

The Pickwick Papers is a very funny book, and it's no surprise it is loved to this day. What has made this book extra special to me is Patrick Tull's reading of it. He narrates the story and plays each character with a style and energy I think would be exhausting to imitate. I have to admit I don't love the recording quality that much (it's a little too strong in the mid-range). But the life Tull's performance gives to the book allows me to overlook this minor technicality. This is a must-have in your collection!

concluded to the satisfaction of everybody ...

as i come to the end of 'the pickwick papers' i recall that there are some books whose end i dread because of a relationship i have developed with its characters that i don't want to end. i first read this book about twenty years ago and remember the same feeling then. less of a page-turner than, say, 'a tale of two cities,' and lighter than his social commentaries (just about everything else!), the p.p. are, i suppose, 'enchanting.' i am already thinking ahead to the time in the future when i will see fit to read/listen to the misadventures of pickwick, tupman, snodgrass and winkle again.

the audio quality (recorded in format 1, converted to format 2 ) was acceptable, i listened to the first half to two-thirds in my car while driving across canada (windows up, volume moderate) and am finishing up on bose headphones.

the reader is very good to excellent. occasionally, i had some trouble understanding him by some combination of accent and or sound quality, but there were not enough of these moments to take away from my over-all enjoyment of his expressive voice and characterizations.

that's about it ... should i have offended anyone, i would like to point out that my comments should be understood in their 'pickwickian sense' and all, i trust, will be well again with the world.

sml, m.p.c.

Hilarious and Moving

I re-downloaded the Pickwick Papers at level 3 after suffering through the low resolution version a few years back, and was delighted with the sound quality this time around.

The Pickwick Papers is one of the funniest books I have ever read and really showcased Dickens' immense talents. My previous readings of Dickens were of the more serious variety--Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist, Christmas Carol--which are wonderful themselves, but this was a treat.

I don't think it could have been read better than by Patrick Tull (of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin fame). He proves that sometimes a book is better in audible than read off the page. His enthusiasm and accents really bring the words to life. Brilliant! His loss is greatly felt.

great story, poor sound quality

I have actually listened to this book from Recordedbooks.com on cassette several years ago and enjoyed it. The sound quality with the original cassettes was never great but the audible.com sound quality is very disappointing. While making the book available in format 3 or 4 might provide only modest gains in sound quality, any improvement would be worth the increase in file size. The poor sound quality makes me wonder how audible.com digitizes the original recordings: does recordedbooks.com provide high quality master tapes or does audible.com simply take any old consumer cassette and digitize that.

The story is a great one (although it doesn't really take off until a few chapters after Sam Weller joins the story) and Patrick Tull is a great reader. If you can stand the poor sound quality this is a great (although uneven in parts) Dickens book and one of my favorites.

Beautifully read

A great story literally brought to life. I especially couldn't stop laughing out loud to Sam's stories

The Pickwick Papers

I am a real lover of Dickens and looked forward to listening to this book. Unfortuanately the sound quality is so poor it is often hard to understand, at least for me. The reader sounds as if he is underwater.

I give up

Really looking forward to this one. But a big mistake. Quality of this recording is really really bad. I gave this more than an hours listen, then I stopped and gave up.

overpriced & almost unlistenable

As good as Tull's reading and characterizations are, at the highest format available (2), this recording makes Tull sound like he is talking through 3 pairs of socks! To the point of its being unintelligble.

To add insult to injury, this title is split in 2. I don't know what deal Audio struck with Recorded Books for this recording but charging twice as much as most of the other similar length (~30hr) Dickens titles at half the audio quality is, at least by my reckoning, extortionate. At the very least you should consider this only one title.