X-Book

Dunbar

Hogarth Shakespeare (Related to this series)

Click Buy to Log in and see personalised pricing.

Send as a gift Get in the xigxag app
How does xigxag pricing work?

Listen to a sample

What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

From the author of the Patrick Melrose novels, now a major Sky Atlantic television series starring Benedict Cumberbatch

Henry Dunbar, the once all-powerful head of a global media corporation, is not having a good day. In his dotage he handed over care of the corporation to his two eldest daughters, Abby and Megan. But relations quickly soured, leaving him to doubt the wisdom of past decisions.

Now imprisoned in a care home in the Lake District with only a demented alcoholic comedian as company, Dunbar starts planning his escape. As he flees into the hills, his family is hot on his heels. Who will find him first, his beloved youngest daughter, Florence, or the tigresses Abby and Megan, so keen to divest him of his estate?

© Edward St Aubyn 2017 (P) Penguin Audio 2017

Critics Review

St Aubyn has a natural talent for keeping you on the edge of your seat… His prose has an easy charm that masks a ferocious, searching intellect
The Times
Malevolently enjoyable… A fable of fatherly neglect and daughterly cruelty
Financial Times
Deeply affecting…and funny
Observer
Powerful… Entertaining
Spectator
Of all the novelist and play matches in the Hogarth Shakespeare series, that of Edward St Aubyn with King Lear seems the finest. Shakespeare’s blackest, most surreal and hectic tragedy sharpened by one of our blackest, more surreal and hectic wits… It's an enticing prospect... His Lear is Henry Dunbar, the head of an international media corporation – like Conrad Black or Rupert Murdoch – and is brilliantly awful… The other characters, even minor ones, are also wittily and cleverly updated
Guardian
He is an inspired choice to retell King Lear for Hogarth Shakespeare’s anniversary series. Dunbar emerges as one of the finest contributions in a line-up glittering with literary stars…He has transplanted the heart of the story into the present and made it feel remarkably authentic
Observer
A piercing portrait of existential agony... savagely acute
Daily Mail
Edward St Aubyn, in his powerful new novel Dunbar, applies the oxyacetylene brilliance and cauterisation of his prose to bear on the tragic endgame of a family’s internecine struggle for control of a global fortune. St Aubyn is a connoisseur of depravity, yet also shows he cherishes the possibility of redemption… An Aubynesque simile can brighten a grey passage… Most of the novel is harsh; all of it is entertaining
Spectator
St Aubyn is excellent on the characters’ psychology... powerful and moving
Mail on Sunday
Malevolently enjoyable… The scenes that feel most real, interestingly, are those that are most fantastical, when we are drawn inside the chaos of Dunbar’s unravelling mind… Here the language feels sculpted and precise, Dunbar’s obsessive solipsism both violent and convincing… St Aubyn’s talent for brittle one-liners is as lethal as ever
Financial Times
Author Edward St Aubyn
Narrator Henry Goodman
Series Hogarth Shakespeare
Duration 7 hours and 27 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9781473555334
Format Audiobook
Publisher Random House
Genre Classic and pre-20th century plays, Family life fiction, Fiction: inspired by or adapted from, Modern and contemporary fiction
Availability AU, GB, IE

More from the same

Author

Narrator

About xigxag

xigxag is an independent, UK-based audiobook platform and the UK’s only B Corp certified audiobook company. We offer nearly 150,000 audiobooks, all with professional human narration. No AI-generated voices. xigxag is rated an Ethical Consumer Best Buy for audiobooks and a top-rated ethical bookshop.

There is no subscription. You buy the audiobooks you want, you own them permanently, and prices start at £8.99. The more you listen over the year, the less you pay per book, and there is always a selection in Listen for Less from £3.99. You can also send audiobooks as gifts using our audiobook gift cards or in-app gifting.

Every audiobook on xigxag has honest reviews covering both the book and the narration, and our community features make it easy to share what you are listening to, discover what others recommend, and find your next listen.

Download or stream on iOS, Android, or in your browser. Browse the full catalogue at xigxag.co.uk.