Which Adventures of Sherlock Holmes recording should you buy?
A book of twelve stories, out of copyright and sold many times over, far more often than this table shows. Under this exact title Audible UK also sells a different set of Holmes stories altogether, radio plays old and new, a retelling for children and an AI voice. The complete readings we opened run 9 hrs 8 mins to 11 hrs 4 mins.
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Arthur Conan Doyle · 13 Audible UK recordings compared
Short answer
Derek Jacobi: complete and solo, and he also reads A Study in Scarlet and The Hound of the Baskervilles. The other complete readings in the table are solo and marked unabridged, so choose on voice. Stephen Fry's Definitive Collection holds this book along with the rest of the canon. The trap under this title is Robert Hardy's listing: the same name, a running time that looks right, and a different book. Its description lists the fifteen stories it contains, and they come from the later collections — The Empty House, The Final Problem and The Musgrave Ritual among them — with none of the stories from The Adventures. The BBC Radio 4 edition with Clive Merrison and Michael Williams is the twelve stories as plays. The Gielgud and Welles edition is a radio series, with Ralph Richardson as Watson and episode dates from 1955 in its description. The edition with "(Dramatised)" in its title holds four plays, not all of them from this book. David Timson's "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes I" is one of several numbered volumes and holds four of the stories. And the Classic Starts edition is a retelling for children: its description says the stories "have been rewritten for younger audiences" in the same sentence that calls them unabridged.
The recordings, compared
| Narrator | Length | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Derek Jacobi Our pick | 11 hrs 4 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo. Jacobi also reads A Study in Scarlet and The Hound of the Baskervilles. |
| Stephen Thorne | 10 hrs 24 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo. Its description dates the collection to 1892 and counts "a dozen" cases. |
| Simon Prebble | 10 hrs 18 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo. |
| Samuel Roukin | 10 hrs 16 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo. Subtitled "Second Edition", with Catherine Wynne credited as editor in the byline. |
| Jonathan Keeble | 9 hrs 32 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo. |
| Simon Vance | 9 hrs 8 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo. Listed with "(AmazonClassics Edition)" after the title; its description counts twelve mysteries. |
| Stephen Fry | 71 hrs 57 mins | Unabridged, complete-canon collection | Not this book alone: "Sherlock Holmes: The Definitive Collection", which its description says is the complete works — four novels and five collections of short stories — with an introduction by Fry to each, this one included. |
| AI Voice Alex | 9 hrs 43 mins | AI narration (Virtual Voice) | The text read by a synthetic voice. The description opens "This audiobook is narrated by an AI Voice." |
| Robert Hardy | 10 hrs 47 mins | Different book, same title | NOT the 1892 collection. The same title with "A Curated Collection" on the line beneath it: fifteen Holmes stories from the later books, listed in its description, and none of the stories of The Adventures among them. |
| Clive Merrison, Michael Williams and a full cast | 8 hrs 44 mins | BBC full-cast dramatisation | The twelve stories as BBC Radio 4 plays, Merrison as Holmes and Williams as Watson. The line beneath the title reads "BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisations". |
| Sir John Gielgud, Orson Welles | 7 hrs 12 mins | Radio series | A radio series, not a reading: Gielgud as Holmes, Ralph Richardson as Watson and Orson Welles as Moriarty, in episodes its description dates to 1955. Several of them are stories from other Holmes books. |
| Full cast, not named | 3 hrs 23 mins | Full-cast dramatisation | Four plays, labelled "(Dramatised)" in the title: The Speckled Band, The Dancing Men, A Scandal in Bohemia and The Devil's Foot. The Dancing Men and The Devil's Foot are not stories from this book. |
| David Timson | 3 hrs 44 mins | Selection of four stories | Not the whole book: its description says it holds four of the cases, and it is one of several numbered volumes. Audible's listing data marks it unabridged, and the "I" at the end of the title is the only sign that it is a part. |
| Rebecca K. Reynolds | 2 hrs 20 mins | Retelling for younger listeners | A retelling for children, with Chris Sasaki credited beside Conan Doyle and "Classic Starts" on the line beneath the title. It runs 26% of the shortest complete reading here, and Audible's listing data marks it unabridged. |
