Our Mutual Friend

By: Charles Dickens

Narrated by: Jim Killavey

John Harmon returns from exile expecting to receive an inheritance, but knows that he must marry a stranger, Bella Wilfer, in order to collect. He fakes his own death and takes on a new identity in order to observe her first.

Some of the memorable characters in this, the last completed Dickens novel, include Bella who, unlike other Dickens heroines, cannot be accused of unnatural virtue; the insolent barrister Eugene Wrayburn; the amiable Boffin; and the rascal Silas Wegg.

Not a little Dickens: peruse our full list of Charles Dickens titles.©1988 JimCin Recordings (P)1988 JimCin Recordings

Critic reviews

"With a cast of characters that covers the whole spectrum of London life, Dickens weaves a tapestry of tales that are by turn funny, moving and tragic." (School Library Journal)

Wonderful characters

I remember reading Great Expectations and David Copperfield when I was in school many years ago and being totally caught up in the Dickens world but...just got too busy to read more terrific but very long Dickens novels. Thank you Audible!!
Not only have I discovered more of Dickens wonderful characters but, for a few weeks at least, I actually looked forward to my long daily commute. Wonderful book and very well read.

Great book

Great chacters as is always the case with Dickens and well read.

The Usual Dickens

The usual Dickens, which is to say, wonderful.
Some people may object to the fact that the reader is not British but I liked that. I find British accents, although creating a certain authenticity, draw too much attention to themselves and distract me from the meaning. I know many feel the opposite about this but, to each his own. If in doubt, listen to the sample first.

High comedy

I have been enjoying many of Audible's offerings of the novels of Charles Dickens, but Our Mutual Friend is my favorite to date. The variety of human life and striving depicted in this novel is fascinating, and the unspoken moral commentary on class, wealth, and the treatment of the poor is relevant even today. This is Dickens at his finest, and teeming, crowded, hypocritical Victorian London at its most vivid. The narrator annoyed me at first, sounding somewhat robotic, but either he grows on the listener or he improved as he went along, because by Part 2 he is doing wonderful character voices and making me laugh out loud at some of the intonations and expressions of Londoners like Miss Jenny Wren, the dolls' dressmaker; Mr. Eugene Wrayburn, bored barrister; Noddy Boffin, "rhinocerous-skinned" old dustman; Mr. Venus, the mournful taxidermist who has been gravely disappointed in love; and Silas Wegg, a scheming "literary man with a wooden leg." There are so many quotable lines and memorable descriptions in this novel, which is rich in irony and humor. I hope I can remember a few to intersperse into my own conversation. The characters' quests for money, and the Boffins' attempts to "atone" for their inheritance of money, are convoluted and make for wonderful listening. I thought, based on the other readings of Dickens that I have heard on Audible, that I preferred the British accents of other narrators, which seemed to make Dickens' absurd characters, witty observations, and complicated plot developments even funnier, but after my initial irritation with this American narrator (who demonstrates perhaps a hint of a Boston accent now and then), I grew to appreciate and admire his interpretation of the fascinating and curious characters of Our Mutual Friend. If you like classic novels, or Dickens in particular, you will enjoy this reading.

Great Book

This is one of the few Dickens books I had not read and it turned out to be the usual Dickens i.e. Wonderful. Well read, also.