A Dark Night's Work


Read by LibriVox Volunteers

(4 stars; 77 reviews)

Love, murder and class commentary in Mrs Gaskell's usual brilliant style! This novel was originally serialised and published by Charles Dickens, with whom Mrs Gaskell had several disagreements. She chose to avoid melodrama and concentrate on psychological realism to produce a moving story of people meeting and parting across class divides. - Summary by Beth Thomas (6 hr 35 min)

Chapters

Chapter 1 9:16 Read by fiddlesticks
Chapter 2 11:27 Read by fiddlesticks
Chapter 3 31:13 Read by Mary Schneider
Chapter 4 25:34 Read by Mary Schneider
Chapter 5 30:00 Read by Grace Byrne
Chapter 6 33:18 Read by Wendy Almeida
Chapter 7 30:55 Read by James K. White
Chapter 8 29:01 Read by James K. White
Chapter 9 42:20 Read by Lisa Reichert
Chapter 10 19:40 Read by Anthony Orr
Chapter 11 17:56 Read by Anthony Orr
Chapter 12 42:27 Read by Anthony Orr
Chapter 13 12:08 Read by Anthony Orr
Chapter 14 13:13 Read by Arnold
Chapter 15 24:56 Read by Arnold
Chapter 16 22:15 Read by Deon Gines

Reviews

Just listen


(4 stars)

Yes, the woman, Fiddlesticks, who read chapters 1 & 2 and Anthony Orr (10-13) were monotonous, a bit fast, & didn't read punctuation properly but they do speak English well. You can understand them so long as you focus 100% during their chapters. I went through this book just fine. It's a story of loss & sadness around a secret regarding an accident. There's much hardship but things do settle down a bit eventually. It's a good drama.

A Daughter's Love


(5 stars)

Mz Gaskell does it again! Providing us with a wonderful tale of a Daughter's love for her father and his faithful servant. I enjoyed the various readers though, as reviewed before, one has to listen quickly or rewind the one speedy reader to get all he had to say. I am sure he will improve with practice! Thank you all for providing us this story.


(4 stars)

omigoodness, I was loving it until chapters 10 and 11. What a crying shame to hear a lovely story butchered by the reader!


(4 stars)

It would really be a shame to judge the good readers along with the poor ones. If you feel you can bear with the readers of chapter 1, 2 and 10-12 (the latter being quite awful...), then you are in for a treat. Thanks to all the other good readers! As always, a good book by E. Gaskell!


(3 stars)

whatever is hidden will be brought to the light.. I wish volunteers would not use novels to read. I dont think they listen to their own recordings, cause if they did, they purposely destroying a book.. they need to listen and take notes from experience readers. i will no longer appreciate bad readers for their time.


(5 stars)

Another wonderful story by Elizabeth Gaskell. Unfortunately, much of it was lost to me by the poor reading of some of the chapters. I so appreciate LibraVox and the people who volunteer, but I sometimes wonder how these volunteers are chosen. Please listen to what has been recorded before you release these classics! Thank you!!


(5 stars)

A great story about the devastation caused by covering up our misdeeds rather than owning to them. Most readers were good, but there is one who needs to ennunciate more clearly, learn how to pronunce some words (Lyons as "lions"?), and slow down, although changing the playback speed does help with that.


(2.5 stars)

Good book, some of the narrators were hard to fill especially chapters 10-13 - I slowed the recording down by 1/2 and it was still fast and garbled, like he had something in his mouth. Horrible