The Dream Woman

By: Wilkie Collins

Narrated by: B.J. Harrison

Length: 4 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's Summary

“Wake up! Wake up, there! Murder!” A hostler spits out these vehement words while he turbulently sleeps. He is haunted by a phantasm. It is a phantasm with a droop in the left eye, long flaxen hair, and a long buckhorn clasp knife.

Public Domain (P)2009 B.J. Harrison

broken

What would have made The Dream Woman better?

So disappointing! I was thrilled to see a Wilkie Collins story I had never read before, and the narrator captured the perfect tone for Collins, but it becomes unlistenable as the file is corrupted. Apparently this was compiled from a serialized podcast, and the sections not only play out of order, but are jumbled on top of each other, randomly inserting snippets of the introduction.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

the story & narration are wonderful but the file is broken

Any additional comments?

I hope someone can fix the file of this delightful story.

Great story-poor recording

I love Wilkie Collins stories and this is right up there with the best. The narration is very good and keeps you entertained. However the recoding quality is very poor, sections repeat themselves for no apparent reason and makes the story hard to follow. Maybe another version??

Horrible audio quality

I've listened to several books narrated by B.J. Harrison, and I can't say I'm overwhelmed. Though the performance was rather well-done, the quality of the recording was abominable. The sections of the audio overlapped and repeated over and over again. It's even hard to say that I managed to listen to the whole story!
So downhearted. :( Beware.

doubled?

the story repeats itself, if you listen to this book in its entirety you will hear the story twice. you may wish to fix that

a rip off

This program is 2 hour repeated twice. Typical of audible's carelessness. They know how to charge a lot but they don't seem to have any money for editors.

Narrator ruined the story for me

I truly enjoy the work of Wilkie Collins but to be quite honest, the story was ruined by the narrator. There’s usually a lot of substance to his stories and typically you have to pay close attention in order to piece it all together. And although this narrator has a pleasant voice, it’s not particularly suited to this type of narrative. It kind of just lulled me into a state of boredom and my mind wandered. I tried to restart the book several times but it continued to happen. As I already know I enjoy the author and his writing style, I’m afraid it can only be the narrator’s voice that wasn’t right for me. I’ going to see if there is another recording of the same book but with a different narrator. I think I’ll enjoy it much more then.

This Audio Book is only half as long as it seems

I love Wilkie Collins and the narrator was superlative, my only complaint is I thought the book was twice as long as it actually was because the story is recorded twice! Here I thought I had 2+ hours left to go, when suddenly it all ended and began again!

it's only 2 hours not 4! story repeated!!

good story, good narration (except some accents) but it's short....just repeated! on there twice! !

A haunting Wilkie Collins short story

The presentation is actually half the length advertised! It's the complete story though!

I enjoyed this quick listen, the story and the narration. Hauntingly engaging. A great tale for cold, blustery autumn weekend listening.

Another found the presenter difficult, I didn't have a problem at all.

Too painful to listen to

Why does this gentleman think he can perform British accents?!?! He is simply horrible and it makes this too painful to listen to. He is completely clueless as to regional accents of the UK and his attempts are just comically painful at best, racist and insulting at worst. This is the second book I've purchased that is narrated by this man and I have deleted both without finishing the first chapter. Even his "normal" reading is rather bizarre and simply makes it impossible to concentrate on the story rather than to how it's read.

As with other readings by this gentleman, he mispronounced quite a few words which again takes away from the story. It begins in the first sentences he reads. Simple words like "hosteler" which is pronounced with a silent "h" at the beginning. If a narrator is unfamiliar with a word it's a simple enough thing to look the word up for information on the correct pronunciation.

The way Mr. Harrison emphasises certain areas and ignores places where emphasis belongs also distracts from the story.

I purchased this without having listened to the sample and I've learned my lesson! I've also learned to avoid anything read by Mr. Harrison.

A waste of money a very poor listen

The narration of this book is very poor. The narrator's accent for the Somerset peasant is at best an Irish accent and a worst sounds like a mumble. other attempts at accents are similarly poor. Also, there are 34 chapters listed, but the story only lasts 20 of these and is then repeated for the remaining 14.