Far From the Madding Crowd

A vivid classic set in a remote rural corner of early Victorian England features conflicting values, class dichotomy, opposing principles, and romantic drama. Never ceasing to be relevant, Hardy's classic endures as Bathsheba Everdene waivers between wielding her feminine wiles to secure love and marriage and maintaining her stoic independence and self-reliance. Neville Jason narrates with an upper-crust accent, then deftly shifts to the characters' distinctive singsong Cornish speech and earthy expressions. He adapts well to the tones of women and the elderly. The audiobook's musical interludes, while striking the moods reflected in scenes, are slightly too strident--but are not a distraction from the novel's fatalistic turmoil and picturesque descriptions. A.W. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine


This 1874 novel set in the English Midlands has, by its author's standards, a relatively happy ending. At least the faithful Gabriel Oak eventually marries beautiful Bathsheba Everdene,whose first husband is murdered by an insane suitor, after the husband's jilted first love dies in the workhouse. Martin Shaw, while giving spirited interpretations of the characters, lays back the narrative to the point of mumbling. The abridgment is a bit too drastic to deliver the qualities that make the book special. Y.R. (c) AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine