Which Silver Chair recording should you buy?
The book read in full by Jeremy Northam, an abridged reading, and a BBC radio play with Bernard Cribbins, all under the same name. The listing titles tell them apart.
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C.S. Lewis · 3 Audible UK recordings compared
Short answer
Jeremy Northam for the book: complete and solo, titled "The Silver Chair: Unabridged". Sir Michael Hordern's edition has "Abridged" in its title and is a cut text. The BBC Radio 4 production is a play, listed as "The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Silver Chair" with Bernard Cribbins and Stephen Thorne in the cast; enjoy it as an adaptation, not as the book. The read edition's description calls this "the sixth in the series": that is the publisher's story-order numbering, not the order of writing.
The recordings, compared
| Narrator | Length | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jeremy Northam Our pick | 5 hrs 26 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo. Listed as "The Silver Chair: Unabridged". |
| Sir Michael Hordern | 2 hrs 18 mins | Abridged | Abridged, and labelled so in the title: 42% of the length of the shortest complete reading here. |
| Bernard Cribbins, Frances Tomelty, Stephen Thorne, Richard Griffiths and a full cast | 2 hrs 11 mins | BBC full-cast dramatisation | A radio play, not a reading. The line beneath the title reads "A BBC Radio 4 Full-Cast Dramatisation". |
