Which Horse and His Boy recording should you buy?
Alex Jennings reads the whole book; beside it sit an abridged reading and a BBC radio play with Fiona Shaw and Martin Jarvis. Same name on all of them, and the listing titles are the only guide.
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C.S. Lewis · 3 Audible UK recordings compared
Short answer
Alex Jennings for the book: complete and solo, titled "The Horse and His Boy: Unabridged". Sir Michael Hordern's edition has "Abridged" in its title and is a cut text. The BBC Radio 4 production, with Fiona Shaw, Stephen Thorne and Martin Jarvis in the cast, is a play: an adaptation with actors, and a good one to have alongside the book. The read edition's description calls this "the third in the series", which is the publisher's story-order numbering and not the order of writing.
The recordings, compared
| Narrator | Length | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alex Jennings Our pick | 4 hrs 40 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo. Listed as "The Horse and His Boy: Unabridged". |
| Sir Michael Hordern | 2 hrs 11 mins | Abridged | Abridged, and labelled so in the title: 47% of the length of the shortest complete reading here. |
| Fiona Shaw, Stephen Thorne, Martin Jarvis, James Graves and a full cast | 2 hrs 21 mins | BBC full-cast dramatisation | A radio play, not a reading. The line beneath the title reads "A BBC Radio 4 Full-Cast Dramatisation". |
