Which Pride and Prejudice recording should you buy?
The complete novel runs a little under twelve hours. That single fact settles most of what is confusing about this listing, which mixes solo readings, a starry dramatisation, and two box sets of four and six novels that are not this book on its own.
Short answer
Rosamund Pike, Lindsay Duncan or Emilia Fox -- all three are complete, all three are solo, and choosing between them is genuinely a matter of taste rather than content. What is worth knowing is what the short entries are. The Lulu Raczka production at 4h34 with Marisa Abela and Glenn Close is an original dramatisation with a score, not a reading. The Christian Neale listing is marked Unabridged at 4h37, which is less than half the length of every other complete reading; we cannot reconcile that. And the 53-hour and 81-hour entries are four- and six-novel collections -- excellent value, but you are not buying this book.
Every recording, compared
| Narrator | Length | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rosamund Pike Our pick | 11 hrs 35 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo. |
| Lindsay Duncan | 12 hrs 3 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo, an Audible Studios recording. |
| Emilia Fox | 13 hrs 2 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo. |
| Stevie Zimmerman | 12 hrs 14 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo. |
| B. J. Harrison | 12 hrs 30 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo. |
| Marisa Abela, Harris Dickinson, Glenn Close and others | 4 hrs 34 mins | Full-cast dramatisation | An original adaptation by Lulu Raczka with an original score. A good listen; not the novel. |
| Christian Neale | 4 hrs 37 mins | Unabridged | Marked Unabridged at under half the length of every other complete reading here. The label and the runtime cannot both be right. |
| Alison Larkin | 81 hrs 2 mins | Unabridged, six-novel collection | The complete Austen, not Pride and Prejudice alone. Fine if that is what you want. |