Bleak House (unabridged)

Audio Sample

Charles Dickens

Bleak House

Read by Sean Barrett & Teresa Gallagher

unabridged

A complex plot of love and inheritance is set against the English legal system of the mid-nineteenth century, with all its tortuous avenues and disguised resolutions. Here is the firm, Jarndyce & Jarndyce, the young orphan and ward of court Esther Summerson (who tells much of the story). As always, it is the skilled pen of Dickens himself that creates the momentum with his acute eye for both individual characters and their traits, and the backdrop of Victorian London.

Audiofile – Earphones Award The Times – Best Audiobooks of the Year
  • 28 CDs

    Running Time: 35 h 16 m

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    More product details
    ISBN:978-962-634-431-6
    Digital ISBN:978-962-954-487-4
    Cat. no.:NAX43112
    BISAC:FIC004000
    Released:September 2006
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Reviews

Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award

After its recent warm reception on ‘Masterpiece Theatre’, you may be thinking that it’s time to read this classic. But will you really do it? Audio is a great way to enjoy Dickens, especially as he himself believed the best way to deliver his material was to read it aloud. By turns darkly humorous, horrific and poignant, this is great entertainment. Narrators Sean Barrett and Teresa Gallagher more than hold their own with the complex story and multitude of characters. Gallagher breathes new life into young Esther, portraying her with charm and intelligence and avoiding the cloying sweetness she is frequently accused of. Barrett gives weight and voice to the loftiest and lowest members of mid-19th-century British society, while drawing out every ounce of humour in what can be, in the right hands, a very funny novel.

D.G. AudioFile


The Times Best Audiobooks of the Year

This has been an exceptionally rich year for audio-listening. Naxos is proceeding apace with its magnificent range of unabridged Austens and Dickens. My favourite remains Bleak House, so much more than the diatribe against the legal system that abridgements can make it. It lends itself well to audio, told as it is in two voices, the narrator (Sean Barrett, mesmeric as chill Mr Tulkinghorne) and Esther Summerson (spoken with freshness and honesty by Teresa Gallagher).

The Times


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