Discussion Groups / English Usage / July 2009

the adventures of huckleberry fin  for mark twain is read with
southern accent , you can find it here
http://librivox.org/the-adventures-of-huckleberry-finn-by-mark-twain/

No, you aren't the only one. I remember hearing the U.S. edition of one
of the Harry Potter audiobooks a few years back. Gawd almighty was it
awful compared to hearing it in Stephen Fry's plummy English. At one
point, I distinctly remember the narrator saying of some dialogue that
it was delivered in a high-pitched tone, then delivering the line in a
deep, gruff voice. (I think it might have been the first scene with
Dobby in 'Chamber of Secrets'.)

I also tried listening to a LibriVox recording of Conrad's Heart of
Darkness only to find it was delivered by a woman with a rather squeaky
American accent. I gave up within ten minutes. The whole imaginative
frame is broken: these are supposed to be pretty rough men on a boat, on
the Thames, in Victorian London. Of course, yes, it's LibriVox, and it's
great that someone volunteers to do quite a significant amount of work
in producing an audiobook for free, but it just did not sit right.