Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite

This was my introduction to Tony Britton as a narrator and I am very impressed. Timothy West and Frederick Davidson come to mind as comparable in talent.

This book could have been titled Emily after the heroine Miss Hotspur. In some ways she reminds me of Marianne Dashwood "Sense and Sensibility" in her naivet? and of Fanny Price "Mansfield Park" in the strength of her resolve. Like her sister heroines, Emily is not the kind of woman one would willingly cross. The thought of the probable results would terrify me. However, George Hotspur, the anti hero of the piece, had no such terrors. Glib as Willoughby and smooth as Henry Crawford, he was sure of his ability to talk his way out of or into any situation and confident of his ability with women. Like his fellow scoundrels, his weakness of character comes into play. I am not so satisfied with Trollope's bitter sweet conclusion of this little tale but one can't have everything.

Tony Britton has a beautiful voice and superlative diction. I thoroughly enjoyed both the story and the performance. This is an interesting book and the characters are engrossing.

An excellent narrator cannot redeem Trollope's maudlin tale of failed romance between a bad man and the puritanical, delusional woman who inexplicably loves him. The crux of the story is told in the first two hours; the remaining five hours are devoted to the characters' interminable vacillating. From the endless moping - and and pointless hoping - of Trollope's reality-challenged heroine, I conclude that upperclass women of this era had way too much free time ... to think about themselves. Listen at your own risk.