David Copperfield audiobook by Charles Dickens read by Ben Kingsley. Abridged. Excellent.

David Copperfield narrates his life-story from his birth to middle age in 1800s England. It is a remarkable story and a remarkable telling. It wouldn’t be surprising if some listeners end up reading this book which contains some of Dicken’s best storytelling. He is a brilliant wordsmith.
Harry Potter fans might enjoy watching a very young Daniel Radcliffe play David Copperfield in the 1999 BBC miniseries alongside Maggie Smith (Professor McGonagall in the Potter series). You can compare Daniel's performance with a child star named Freddie Bartholomew who played the same roll in the 1935 David Copperfield film alongside comedian W.C. Fields and cranky old lady with a heart of gold character actress, Edna May Oliver.

GBOT Review: Story-Excellent. Reading Performance-Excellent. Ben Kingsley gives a master class in audiobook performance reading.

Ben Kingsley gives an excellent reading performance portraying all the different characters in a well nuanced way. For example, he doesn’t make himself sound silly by pitching his voice too high when reading the female roles. While many will recognize him as the actor who plays a faux terrorist in Iron Man 3, his greatest and most important role, which won him an Oscar for best actor, was when he consummately portrayed Gandhi in the 1982 film. The movie revealed what a humble yet great servant/leader Gandhi was and what an impact he made in India and throughout the world. Gandhi also won the Oscar for best picture.

Illustrations – I inserted many wonderful public domain illustrations of the book’s characters into the video. It took a very long time and I’ll never do it again unless this audiobook get’s a million views. The illustrator’s initials are on or next to most of the images. Special thanks to Personally, I’d like to see more drawings and illustrations in (non-porn) books for adults.
Here are the initials and artists.

FB - Fred Barnard, HB - Hablot Knight Browne (Hablot, really?), KYD - Joseph Clayton Clark (go figure), HC - Harold Copping, FR - Frank Reynolds, ES – Everett Shinn, DT – Dudley Tennant.
Enjoy!

Special Thanks to Phillip V. Allingham for having posted a number of images on the Victorianweb.org site.

But I digress...
You would think that a 1 ½ hour abridged performance of a book, which unabridged lasts 36 ½ hours, would be missing so much that it wouldn’t be worth listening to. Happily, that is not the case. Having read the book a number of years ago, I can attest that this audiobook covers a great deal of the story while retaining much of the story’s impact and emotion.
It’s similar to watching an excellent movie adaptation of a thousand-page book. However, unlike a movie, an audiobook doesn't take artist license. Instead, it removes passages which may be great to read but too often drag on when listened to. During a road trip along California’s coastline, I almost drove my brother and myself off the highway and over a cliff while listening to such mesmerizing (i.e., sleep inducing) reading. (Thanks for the near-death experience, Anne Morrow Lindbergh/Gift From The Sea.) But I digress.