Which Warden recording should you buy?
The first of the six Barsetshire novels and much the shortest -- under seven hours where the later ones run past thirty. Seven editions, all unabridged, which makes this a rare case where the only real question is whose voice you want.
Short answer
Timothy West, for a reason specific to this book rather than a general preference: he reads all six Barsetshire novels and all six Pallisers, so starting with him means you can carry straight on through twelve books without changing narrator halfway. Every edition here is unabridged, so unusually for this site there is no trap -- nobody is going to sell you the wrong text. One thing worth noticing: the Edward Fox edition runs 9 hours 42 against a cluster around 7 hours. We do not know why, and we would check the product page before assuming.
Every recording, compared
| Narrator | Length | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Timothy West Our pick | 6 hrs 44 mins | Unabridged | Reads all twelve Trollope novels across both cycles, so you can continue without a change of voice. |
| Simon Vance | 7 hrs 9 mins | Unabridged | Complete. Vance also reads several of the other Trollopes, though not the full set. |
| Nigel Hawthorne | 7 hrs 51 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo. |
| David Shaw-Parker | 7 hrs 34 mins | Unabridged | Complete. Shaw-Parker has recorded an unusually large amount of Trollope. |
| Flo Gibson | 7 hrs 6 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo. |
| Sandra Cullum | 7 hrs 56 mins | Unabridged | Complete and solo. |
| Edward Fox | 9 hrs 42 mins | Unabridged | Listed as unabridged but runs nearly three hours longer than the cluster. That is a large gap for pace alone, and we have not established the cause. |