Which Great Expectations recording should you buy?
Out of copyright and sold many times over: Audible UK carries far more editions of Great Expectations than this table holds. The complete readings here run 16 hrs 3 mins to 22 hrs 2 mins. Beside them are abridgements, one of them by a reader whose complete reading is also on sale, and a BBC full-cast production that Audible's catalogue marks unabridged.
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Short answer
Martin Jarvis: complete and solo, an Audible Studios recording. But this is a book where the famous names really do read the whole thing. Stephen Fry, Eddie Izzard and Matt Lucas (with an introduction by Howard Jacobson) are all complete, and so are Anton Lesser, Harry Lloyd, Simon Vance and the rest of the complete readings, which run 16 hrs 3 mins to 22 hrs 2 mins. Choose on voice. Check before you buy. Anton Lesser's name is on a complete Naxos reading and on a Naxos abridgement, so look at the runtime, not the reader. And the BBC production with Douglas Hodge and Geraldine McEwan is a full cast at a fraction of the length of the complete readings, although Audible's catalogue marks it unabridged.
The recordings, compared
| Narrator | Length | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Martin Jarvis Our pick | 17 hrs 32 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo, from Audible Studios. |
| Stephen Fry | 22 hrs 2 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo. |
| Eddie Izzard | 20 hrs 17 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo. |
| Matt Lucas | 20 hrs 39 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo, with an introduction by Howard Jacobson. Part of The Audible Dickens Collection. |
| Anton Lesser | 19 hrs 9 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo, from Naxos. The same reader has a Naxos abridgement under the same title, below. |
| Harry Lloyd | 17 hrs 16 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo, the Penguin Classics edition. |
| Simon Prebble | 18 hrs 32 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo. |
| Simon Vance | 17 hrs 51 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo. |
| Michael Page | 18 hrs 26 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo. Listed as the AmazonClassics Edition. |
| Frank Muller | 16 hrs 3 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo. |
| Gildart Jackson | 20 hrs 51 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo. |
| Rob Goll and Anna Grace | 19 hrs 31 mins | Unabridged | Complete, with two readers: the listing is subtitled "Duet Narration". |
| Douglas Hodge, Geraldine McEwan and a full cast | 5 hrs 37 mins | BBC full-cast dramatisation, marked unabridged | A BBC radio drama with a cast and a director, at 35% of the shortest complete reading here. Audible's catalogue marks it unabridged, but it is a play, not a reading of the book. |
| Anton Lesser | 5 hrs 14 mins | Abridged | ABRIDGED: the same reader and the same publisher as the complete Naxos reading above. |
| Tom Baker | 3 hrs 5 mins | Abridged | Abridged. |
| Paul Scofield | 3 hrs 4 mins | Abridged | Abridged. |
| Robert Powell | 1 hr 2 mins | Abridged | Abridged, at 6% of the shortest complete reading here. |