Satisfying

I am quite satisfied with this edition. Surely, the accent is a bit off since the narrator is not British, but I am not a native speaker myself so I did not mind that much. For an American, his performance is actually pretty decent. I especially appreciated that all Sherlock Holmes stories are put together in just 3 volumes so it is easy to get them all. I'd say that for this price it's a good product.

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2 people found this helpful

A man for our times

I was really amazed at how modern some of the concepts were, it could have been written today.

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Great stories but narrator annoying

As always I find the Sherlock Holmes stories gripping and a great insight into Victorian social behaviour. However I did find the narrator irritating due to his mispronouncing words including the name of Holmes.! It sounded like Humes. It was quite common for him to pronounce O's and I's differently from Queen's English which is usually not a problem,. In the case of Sherlock Holmes who you know is Victorian English, upper middle class and went to boarding school etc such a mispronounciation detracts from the character and makes ut difficult to believe it is Holmes and Watson speaking. That said I enjoy the stories so much I got the next 2 volumes to have the complete set of stories.

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Beautiful literature, spoilt only by the narrator

I adore these stories, so wonderfully written. I would recommend these books to anyone. The English language at it's literary best. However, this book misses a 5 star rating based purely on the narrator. Conan-Doyle's Holmes demands a native English speaker. Whilst this is one of the better English accents I've heard from an American, there is some laughable pronunciation 'orff' (off) and 'lorng' (long) 'parssenger' etc etc.



But, all in all the writing is strong enough to withstand this onslaught. It greatly depends on how particular you are about these things... If you want these stories in all their glory, then the only narrator is Derek Jacobi.

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The stories speak for themselves...

I'm British and I can't see what the big fuss is in the odd (sometimes amusing) mispronunciation of words - if I can abide it in my friends, I can forgive Charlton Griffin for it. I am surprised to hear that he's American however as that was the one accent I felt he struggled with!
Contrary to a few former reviewers my first priority when buying audiobooks is the ability to distinguish between characters. Griffin has such a brilliant range of voices, albeit with no theatrical differences. But I had to double-take when I first heard him as a woman!
Anyway I recommend this to anyone who simply wants to hear the great stories being read to them (at a very decent price!) in an accent that is true to the time and true to a doctor-esque style. On to Volume II!

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Don't let the accent put you off

As other reviewers have pointed out, the choice of narrator for this audiobook is a little odd. I am not all that fussy when it comes to accents so I listened to this quite happily. Even so, there were a couple of places where the pronunciation of a word would distracted me from the story. But it wasn't annoying enough to out do the great stories covered by this volume.



My advice would be to stay clear of this if you are badly affected by strange accents. Everyone else should listen carefully to the sample audio and bear in mind that the quality of the stories themselves will keep your interest.

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Great material, but...

I don't want to overstate my problem with this, because not everybody will be so fussy - but I cannot *stand* the choice of an American narrator.

It's not that the guy reading it is 'bad at his job'. Not at all. If I were to find him the narrator of an American novel, I expect he might be excellent. But because he's not British, a). his accents are slightly off, and b). he mispronounces certain words in a way that really, really jars.

For instance; "lab-ra-tory". I'm sorry, but a physician in Victorian England would have pronounced it, "lab-ora-tory". "Enth-oo-siasm" should be sounded, "enth-yoo-siasm". And when the narrator attempts to 'gentrify' certain words, he changes the vowels inappropriately - yes, "bath" becomes "barth", but "fancy" does not become "farncy". That's all within the first three minutes.


If you're as finickity as I am, it's intolerable. I couldn't get past the first quarter of an hour. All that said, the stories are great so, if you're not fussed by such things, feel free to ignore me. I'm stunned, though, that nobody has reported this already...

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45 people found this helpful

Excellent stories, dreadful narrator

Wonderful to get back to the originals after the various films, tv series and books and compare the character of Conan Doyle's Holmes and Watson with the numerous alternatives offered today. I bought all three but am deeply frustrated at the choice of narrator. I gave up on the attempt to list the numerous everyday words which jarred, but above all he pronounces the central character 'Hawlms' instead of 'Homes' which grates on the ears over and over and over.
It's too late for me, and I will listen to them all (gritting my teeth) but please, Audible, consider redoing them?

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4 people found this helpful

Good stories but I did not like the narrator

I found the narrator's different accents irritating. When listening to stories I go off into my own little bubble of imagination, picturing the characters, but this narrator's accents would pop that bubble.

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4 people found this helpful

Easy listening

Lots of other reviews mention the annoying habit of the narrator mispronouncing some of the quintessentially English words. I thought I would find this equally annoying. However, I was able to get past this and lose myself in the plots and dialogue between Holmes and Watson. The recording is some 20 hours long and once I was into the collection, the mispronunciations faded into inconsequence. Great value for money for your "credit" too. However, with so many marvellous British voices to choose from, the question is why did they choose an American? That being said, for Holmes fans who can listen to the book whilst picturing Basil Rathbone in his distinctive coat and deerstalker, you won't be disappointed.

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1 person found this helpful