David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

By on April 10, 2010 in 2009

From AudioFile magazine:
At 34 hours in length, this is quite a tome, but there’s no one better qualified than Simon Vance to lead us through this audio journey. He parses the author’s long sentences well, pausing sufficiently to make the details easy to follow while still maintaining a quick enough pace to keep the story going. Most enjoyable is his voicing of the myriad characters who appear in the narrative—and characters they certainly are. Vance times their occasionally hilarious exchanges especially well. All of this is delivered in a manner that suggests that Vance revels in Dickens’s prose and sly humor, and the listener cannot help but revel along with him. Three cheers for Vance—and not the least for his stamina! A.E.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2009

About Simon

If you don't know already: I'm an actor who found his way into audiobook narrating as a side-gig and seems to have made a success of it. I did train as an actor as a child (just a couple of hours a week, but it stuck) and later I spent about 15 years working inside the BBC ending up, for a decade, as one of the presenters/newsreaders on BBC Radio 4 in London. I found my way to California a few (!) years ago and have never left.
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3 Responses to David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

  1. Fred Wemyss March 5, 2012 at 3:34 pm #

    I just finished listening to this audiobook (which took me three weeks as I drove back and forth making deliveries) and must thank Simon Vance for giving such nuance to the prose of Charles Dickens. For a writer whose creations are hard-wired into the collective unconscious, Dickens is, nonetheless, difficult. I read random paragraphs just to see if I was getting the right sense of them. I found myself stumbling. Then I played the same paragraphs as read by Simon Vance and found his interpretations revelatory. Having listened to all 34 hours of this work, I can say Simon Vance made what has to be the ultimate Victorian novel extremely accessible to me. Dickens rang all the changes here. He has a great interpreter in Simopn Vance.

    Reply
    • Simon March 12, 2012 at 9:01 pm #

      Thanks, Fred. I am a huge fan of Charles Dickens and I couldn’t be happier making his language clearer to modern audiences.
      Happy Listening
      – S.

      Reply
      • Fred Wemyss March 15, 2012 at 9:34 pm #

        I’m halfway through your reading of GREAT EXPECTATIONS! I’m noticing Dickens had many variations on several themes through his work. For example, I would say the character Traddles is to David Copperfield as Herbert Pocket is to Pip.

        Reply

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