Which Hound of the Baskervilles recording should you buy?
The complete readings run 6 hrs 16 mins to 6 hrs 58 mins. The same search sells it at 37 minutes, rewritten for English learners twice, shortened for younger listeners, dramatised twice, read by an AI voice — and marked unabridged at under three hours.
Disclosure: links on this page to Audible, Amazon and Audiobooks.com are affiliate links — if you sign up or buy through one, we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. More about this
Arthur Conan Doyle · 15 Audible UK recordings compared
Short answer
David Timson, 6 hours 16 minutes: complete, and the specialist — Audible describes him as the award-winning Sherlock Holmes narrator. Derek Jacobi at 6h22 is complete too, and for once the famous name really is the whole book. The trap on this page is Timson himself: he also reads a 3 hour 34 abridgement sold under exactly the same title, so his name is not enough — check the runtime. Beyond that, this one search sells the Hound rewritten for learners of English twice (an Oxford Bookworms reader at 2h19, marked Adaptation in its title, and a CEFR A1+ reader at 47 minutes whose title is the book's name alone, with the level only on the line beneath it), several abridgements and retellings, the shortest of them 37 minutes, two dramatisations and an AI-voiced edition. And Tony Britton's reading is marked unabridged in Audible's own listing data at 2 hours 59 — under half the length of every complete reading by a person here. It is also out of copyright in the UK, so a complete reading is free on LibriVox.
The recordings, compared
| Narrator | Length | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| David Timson Our pick | 6 hrs 16 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo. The same narrator also has a 3 hour 34 abridgement under the identical title — this is the long one. |
| Derek Jacobi | 6 hrs 22 mins | Unabridged | Complete, listed as Sherlock Holmes: The Hound of the Baskervilles. A famous name, and we checked the length before saying so: it is the whole book. |
| Elliot Barnes Worrell | 6 hrs 58 mins | Unabridged | The Penguin edition. Complete and solo, and the longest straight reading here. |
| AI Voice Arthur Lane | 5 hrs 47 mins | AI narration (Virtual Voice) | The complete text read by a synthetic voice. The listing says so: "This audiobook is narrated by an AI Voice." |
| David Timson | 3 hrs 34 mins | Abridged | ABRIDGED, from a Young Adult Classics series — the same narrator and the same plain title as the complete reading above, at a little over half the length. |
| Freddie Jones | 3 hrs 3 mins | Abridged | Abridged. Penguin English Library, described as adapted for audio. |
| Peter Egan | 2 hrs 20 mins | Abridged | Abridged, to well under half the book. |
| Tony Britton | 2 hrs 59 mins | Unabridged | Marked unabridged in Audible's own listing data, at under half the length of every complete reading by a person on this page. The label and the runtime cannot both be right, and we would believe the runtime. |
| Charles Collingwood | 2 hrs 19 mins | Oxford Bookworms graded reader | Not the novel. The description says it plainly — "An Oxford Bookworms Library reader for learners of English" — and the title carries (Adaptation), so this one is labelled. |
| Karen Kovacs | 47 mins | ELT graded reader (CEFR A1+) | Not the novel. The listing title, the web address and the page heading are just The Hound of the Baskervilles; the line beneath the title reads "CEFR level A1+ (ELT Graded Reader)", which is the only sign before the description. |
| Jim Weiss | 1 hr 19 mins | Retelling (audio adaptation) | A retelling, not a shortened reading: its own description calls it an audio adaptation performed by Jim Weiss, and the byline credits Weiss alongside Conan Doyle. Audible's listing data marks it abridged. |
| Iman | 1 hr 1 min | Simplified adaptation | A simplified retelling, not a shortened reading: its own description says it was abridged and adapted into ten short, easy-to-understand chapters for listeners of all ages and English language abilities, with background music. It does not call itself a graded reader, so neither do we. |
| Rob Penman | 37 mins | Abridged | Abridged to roughly a tenth of the book. The byline credits Tony Evans alongside Conan Doyle. |
| Nicholas Briggs, Richard Earl and cast | 2 hrs 35 mins | Full-cast dramatisation | A Big Finish audio drama adapted by Richard Dinnick. A cast, not a reading. |
| James Marsters, Seamus Dever, Sarah Drew and cast | 1 hr 53 mins | Full-cast dramatisation | An L.A. Theatre Works stage adaptation, recorded before a live audience. |
The recording we recommend is also on Audiobooks.com — the same David Timson reading, listed at 6 hrs 18 mins when we checked on 11 September 2026. Their one-credit plan is listed at £7.99 a month before applicable taxes, and its credits expire after three months — the two models compared. We earn a commission on that link.
