Martin Chuzzlewit

By: Charles Dickens

Narrated by: George Hagan

Originally serialized between 1843-1844, Dickens' story tells of Martin, the grandson of old Martin Chuzzlewit, who is rich but has become bittter due to the greed of his kin. Young Martin is initially selfish but through hard labour and the positive and cheerful influence of his servant, Tapley, becomes decent.

The novel is broken up into segments by young Martin's voyage to seek his fortune in America. This allowed the author to satirically portray the US.

Charles Dickens (1812 - 9 June 1870) is arguably the greatest novelist England ever produced.

Please note: This is a vintage recording. The audio quality may not be up to modern day standards.

Public Domain (P)2009 RNIB

Great story, great reading, great voices, poor production

I was not familiar with this rambling tale of Martin Chuzzlewit and his redemption. I am so glad that I have found it and enjoyed it. The narrator did a wonderful job with the voices and really brought the book to life with each individual character having his or her own dialect, tone, and pitch of speaking without any sort of cloying or painful renditions including the children and women. What struck me was that this recording sounded poorly produced. At times the narrator had to start a sentence over occasionally there were long pauses. It was as though the narrator was doing a five star performance but the producer took no effort to edit or re-record when necessary.

Simply Excellent!

I am a huge fan of Charles Dickens and have read many of his works before listening to the audio version. I was very pleased with this recording because it opened up the characters to me in an entirely new way. George Hagan does an excellent job of portraying both the depth and comical nature of the characters.

This has actually been a repeat listen for me and I highly recommend it!

Good story, ok narration

Overall a very satisfying story. The reader depicts the characters with distinct voices which is nice. There are random pauses and sometime pages are heard turning. An acceptable trade for the price.

Boring

I do not know if I do not like classics anymore but this book seems to be so detailed that I fall sleep, even if I am driving.

Put your glasses on, George

Having recently listened to Old Curiosity Shop, Oliver Twist, and Our Mutual Friend (been on a Dickens kick) as unabridged audiobooks ordered from Audible and been quite pleased with them, I am equally unhappy with this one. Luckily, it didn't cost much!

The voice characterizations are decent (even good in cases like Bailey Jr.), but the misspeaks are inexcusable. At the very least, Mr. Hagan reads incorrectly then goes back to correct himself 3 or 4 times per chapter, sometimes considerably more. Plus, there are inexplicable pauses of 5 seconds or more at times.

The company that produced this recording needs to get George some new glasses, hire a new sound editor, or both.

Save your credits

As an avid admirer of all things Dickens, I was very sorry to have purchased this particular copy of his book Martin Chuzzlewit. I can only assume the 5 stars given to it by others is due entirely to the actual novel itself and not the presentation of it. However the recording is so poor (audible page turning at regular intervals) ect. that I was unable to continue listening to it past the first section. George Hagan does an average job of creating voices, but I have had many more readers who make Dickens really come alive. I am going to listen to this book again, as I love Dickens, but not this edition of it.

Restricted Access

The reading sounds good but I am bitterly disappointed because I have only been given the choice of downloading the book on 35 CDs. I would very much like to download this book on to DVDs but have not been given this option. Regrettably, I will only be able to buy books six or less hours long in future to avoid being buried in CDs. This is a great pity because the best of your audio books are much longer.