Penguin Classics presents the audiobook adaptation of Our Mutual Friend, Dickens' last completed novel portraying a dark, macabre London. Read by Robert Hardy. Our Mutual Friend centres on an inheritance - Old Harmons' profitable dust heaps - and its legatees, young John Harmon, presumed drowned when a body is pulled out of the River Thames, and kindly dustman Mr Boffin, to whom the fortune defaults. With brilliant satire, Dickens portrays a dark, macabre London, inhabited by such disparate characters as Gaffer Hexam, scavenging the river for corpses; enchanting, mercenary Bella Wilfer; the social climbing Veneerings; and the unscrupulous street-trader Silas Wegg.
The novel is richly symbolic in its vision of death and renewal in a city dominated by the fetid Thames, and the corrupting power of money.
Part of a series of abridged, vintage recordings taken from the Penguin Archives. Affordable, collectable, quality productions - perfect for on-the-go listening.
PLEASE NOTE: This recording has been pulled from the Penguin Archives so the quality will not be the same as modern recordings.
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"Dickens brings it again. This is the ninth Dickens work I have read and it sits miles above his other works, maybe up there with Bleak House. Unforgettable characters, unlikely villains, a basic plot but one that keeps interest throughout, and a river that weaves its way through the story sopping through the sordid and the meaningful. As much the journey as the destination, this work is an experience in true Dickensian form."
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Craig (5 out of 5 stars)