But this mangling of the English language by an American reader, however well-meaning, was an absolutely miserable experience and an insult to one of our greatest writers. The whole point of Audible should be to produce fluent and intelligent readings that are a pleasure to hear, and this has been the case with all the books I have listened to so far. Even the simple word “gone” is contorted into “gorn”, time after time throughout the reading - and it’s positively wince-making, every time you hear it. And you would think that anyone, let alone a so-called dialect coach, would know that the word “calm” should rhyme with “palm” - but from Ms Kesler’s lips, inexplicably, it becomes “corm”. Ms Kesler also appears to believe that a Georgian lady would pronounce the word “enquiry” as “IN-querry”, which is laughable. But from her reading, she clearly thinks that the word “sanguine” rhymes with “swine” rather than “thin” - and it is extraordinary that she does not know that “shew” is merely the 18th century spelling of “show” - and so pronounces it throughout the novel as “shoo”, which is agony to hear. Mansfield Park: A BBC Radio 4 Full-Cast Dramatisation Audible Audiobook Abridged Jane Austen(Author), Hannah Gordon(Narrator), Amanda Root(Narrator), Michael Williams(Narrator), BBC Audio(Publisher)& 2more 5.0 out of 5 stars1 rating See all formats and editions Sorry, there was a problem loading this page. Why on earth would it make sense for an American lady to be employed to read a classic English novel such as Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park? Beth Kesler’s own website states that she is an “accent and dialect coach” in languages that include “received English pronunciation”. EXCRUCIATING MANGLING OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Radio 4 mansfield park