Which Tess of the d'Urbervilles recording should you buy?
The complete readings of Tess that we list run 14 hrs 11 mins to 17 hrs 42 mins, and the short listings beside them say Abridged. A tidy page for a Victorian classic, once you look past the runtimes.
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Short answer
Anne-Marie Duff: complete and solo. Peter Firth, Simon Vance, Sian Clifford (the Penguin Classics edition), Davina Porter and the other complete readings in the table run 14 hrs 11 mins to 17 hrs 42 mins; choose on voice. The abridgements are short and labelled: Imogen Stubbs, and Lindsay Duncan with Martin Shaw, which also appears as a listing credited to Shaw alone at the same running time.
The recordings, compared
| Narrator | Length | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anne-Marie Duff Our pick | 14 hrs 31 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo. |
| Peter Firth | 14 hrs 27 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo. |
| Simon Vance | 14 hrs 52 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo. |
| Sian Clifford | 14 hrs 17 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo, the Penguin Classics edition. |
| Davina Porter | 17 hrs 6 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo. |
| Anna Bentinck | 17 hrs 42 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo, from Naxos. |
| Kate Petrie | 14 hrs 11 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo. |
| Jilly Bond | 16 hrs 20 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo. |
| Stephen Jack | 17 hrs 1 min | Unabridged | Complete and solo. |
| Lindsay Duncan and Martin Shaw | 2 hrs 22 mins | Abridged | Abridged. A second listing credited to Martin Shaw alone has the same running time. |
| Imogen Stubbs | 3 hrs 55 mins | Abridged | Abridged. |