It was the best of books and possibly the best of recorded versions. Dickens's dramatic narrative of the French Revolution and the unremitting vengeance of both Mesdames Defarge and La Guillotine are brought to life by Gordon Griffin's fully voiced reading. His reading is not as rushed as some, but is equally dramatic with flawless enunciation and a broad tonal range. What's more, each thirty-five minute side of the twelve tapes has a certain narrative completeness, ending with about thirty seconds of period harpsichord music. Classroom teachers might find these tapes useful for introducing the book, dealing with difficult passages or simply encouraging reluctant readers.

  Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o’clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.
  In consideration of the day and hour of my birth, it was declared by the nurse, and by some sage women in the neighbourhood who had taken a lively interest in me several months before there was any possibility of our becoming personally acquainted, first, that I was destined to be unlucky in life; and secondly, that I was privileged to see ghosts and spirits; both these gifts inevitably attaching, as they believed, to all unlucky infants of either gender, born towards the small hours on a Friday night.