The Complete Stories of Sherlock Holmes, Volume 1 cover art

The Complete Stories of Sherlock Holmes, Volume 1

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The Complete Stories of Sherlock Holmes, Volume 1

By: Arthur Conan Doyle
Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
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About this listen

 First appearing in print in 1890, the character of Sherlock Holmes has now become synonymous worldwide with the concept of a super sleuth. His creator, Conan Doyle, imbued his detective hero with intellectual power, acute observational abilities, a penchant for deductive reasoning and a highly educated use of forensic skills. Indeed, Doyle created the first fictional private detective who used what we now recognize as modern scientific investigative techniques.

Doyle ended up writing four novels and 56 short stories featuring Holmes and his companion, Dr. Watson. All but four are told in the first person by Watson, two by Holmes, and two are written in the third person. Together, this series of beautifully written Victorian literature has sold more copies than any other books in the English language, with the exceptions of the Bible and Shakespeare.

Volume 1 in this series consists of two novels, A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four, followed by a collection of short stories entitled The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

Public Domain (P)2009 Audio Connoisseur Anthologies Anthologies & Short Stories Classics Detective Fiction Mystery Private Investigators Short Stories Traditional Detectives Sherlock Holmes
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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.

Easy listening

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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.

Satisfying

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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.

Beautiful literature, spoilt only by the narrator

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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!

The stories speak for themselves...

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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...

Great material, but...

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