Which Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy recording should you buy?
Four listings, running from seventy-three minutes to nearly six hours — and the complication that whichever you choose, the rest of the series is read by somebody else.
Douglas Adams · 4 recordings on Audible UK
Short answer
Stephen Fry for the novel. Then be aware of the catch: Fry reads only this first book, and Martin Freeman reads the other four. There is no way to hear the whole series in one voice, so if that matters to you, start with Freeman's Restaurant at the End of the Universe and treat Fry as a standalone. The radio versions came first and are worth hearing, but they are not the book.
Every recording, compared
| Narrator | Length | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stephen Fry Our pick | 5 hrs 51 mins | Complete novel | The complete text, and the obvious choice. Fry was a friend of Adams, which shows in the timing. |
| Douglas Adams | 1 hr 13 mins | Author's abridged reading | Adams reading his own book — but at seventy-three minutes against Fry's six hours, this is a heavily cut version. A lovely curio, and absolutely not the way to read the novel for the first time. |
| Full cast with Peter Jones and Susan Sheridan (The Primary Phase) | 3 hrs 56 mins | BBC radio series | The original 1978 broadcast, which came before the novel rather than after it. Unusually for these comparisons, the adaptation is the source and the book is the spin-off. |
| Full cast with Peter Jones and Simon Jones (The Original Album) | 2 hrs 38 mins | Cast recording | Shortest of the lot. A record album version, not the radio series and not the book. |