Great Expectations

By: Charles Dickens

Narrated by: David Ian Davies

Length: 16 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's Summary

Great Expectations is a novel by Charles Dickens, first serialised in All the Year Round from December 1860 to August 1861. The action of the story takes place from Christmas Eve 1812, when the protagonist is about seven years old, to the winter of 1840.

Great Expectations is written in a semi-autobiographical style, and is the story of the orphan Pip, tracing his life from his early days of childhood until adulthood. The story can also be considered a semi-autobiographical portrait of Dickens, like much of his work, drawing on his experiences of life and people.

Public Domain (P)2006 One Voice Recordings

Great novel, troubles in narration

This is another great novel and I highly recommend reading it, but it may be best to consider another narration. Although the voices were done well, if inconsistently, the sentences were not read with appropriate diction. This ensured the listener must apply great effort in order to comprehend the reading. Additionally, the last sentence is not clear, spoiling the end of the novel.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Terrible narration

A great book. But the narration is just terrible. I will have to buy another download with another narrator.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

The narration spoiled it

The story is good. Not one of Dickens' best, but if your a fan you'll enjoy it. I recommend a different narrator, however. Although not picky, I found this one distracted from the story because the cadence of his speech was so odd. While Mr. Davies' pronounciation was fine, his sentences have all the wrong pitch changes listeners use to anticipate direction and perceive punctuation. I kept wondering if the recording had been altered by that gap-clipping software used to reduce running time.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

A very good listen

I wanted to listen to this for a long long time and I did. I say it was a very good listen. The performance was great as was the story.

Exceded my Expectations

Over all this is a superb reading by an excellent reader. This being the least pricey of the various readings, I had some misgivings as to which one to choose. I'm very happy that I chose this particular one. Mr Davies does each of the characters a little more than justice. Exquisite, would not be too strong a word for this recording.
As for the story itself, Great Expectations has been one of my very favorites for many years. Those not familiar with it are in for a treat. I hope listening exceeds your own expectations, as it did mine.

Dickens deserves better. What's the hurry?

I had to give up on this reading after enduring it for more hours than it deserved.
Despite the unnecessary and irritating music between the chapters, the total length of this recording is considerably shorter than any of Audible's other versions of this superb novel. This is achieved by the reader ignoring the punctuation in what seems to be a race to reach the end. Some of the female voices appear to be the reader sped up! Sorry, Dickens is bizarre enough without this sort of nonsense.
I had to download an alternative version but at least I didn't waste too much money.
5 stars for Great Expectation but only 1 for this version.