Charles Dickens: The BBC Radio Drama Collection: Volume One: Classic Drama from the BBC Radio Archive

Charles Dickens

Oct 2015 · BBC Digital Audio · Narrated by Alex Jennings, Full Cast, and Pam Ferris

About this audiobook

Powerful full-cast radio dramatisations of four of Charles Dickens' most famous novels

Charles Dickens is one of the most renowned novelists of all time, and this first volume of the dramatised canon of his work includes four of his best-loved stories.

The Pickwick Papers
Mr Samuel Pickwick, founder of the Pickwick Club, forms a Corresponding Society for members to report back about their travels. So begins the chronicle of their hilariously comic journeys.

Oliver Twist
Born and brought up in the workhouse, orphan Oliver escapes to London - only to fall into the hands of the notorious Fagin and his gang of child pickpockets.

Nicholas Nickleby
Left penniless after his father's death, nineteen-year-old Nicholas Nickleby takes a teaching position at Dotheboys Hall, where the brutal Wackford Squeers presides.

The Old Curiosity Shop
Pretty, innocent Little Nell's childhood is shattered when evil moneylender Quilp discovers her grandfather is in debt. The duo are forced to leave their curiosity shop and go on the run...

With an all-star cast including Pam Ferris, Tim McInnerny, Alex Jennings, Anna Massey, Ken Campbell, Tom Baker, Julia McKenzie and Sandi Toksvig, these BBC radio adaptations bring out all the humour, romance, pathos and tragedy of Dickens' four classic masterpieces.

Ratings and reviews

Brilliant it made me feel as if i was actually in the room with Nicholas in fact I am decorating at the moment and I went out to get my red paint and left it playing forgetting all about it I approached the room just as he was rescuing Madeline and I thought they were in the room frightens me to death and made me feel a right daft pilock it is so wonderful it really comes alive

absolutely terrific

About the author

Charles Dickens (1812 – 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's most well-known fictional characters and is generally regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian period. During his life, his works enjoyed unprecedented popularity, and by the twentieth century he was widely seen as a literary genius by critics and scholars. His novels and short stories continue to be widely popular.