The Last Unicorn Audiobook By Peter S. Beagle, Patrick Rothfuss cover art

The Last Unicorn

Preview

Get this deal Try for $0.00
Offer ends April 30, 2025 at 11:59PM PT.
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

The Last Unicorn

By: Peter S. Beagle, Patrick Rothfuss
Narrated by: Orlagh Cassidy, Joshua Kane
Get this deal Try for $0.00

$14.95/mo. after 3 months. Offer ends April 30, 2025 11:59PM PT. Cancel anytime.

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $18.00

Buy for $18.00

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

INCLUDES A NEW INTRODUCTION BY PATRICK ROTHFUSS

Experience one of the most enduring classics of the twentieth century and the book that The Atlantic has called “one of the best fantasy novels ever.”

The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone...

...so she ventured out from the safety of the enchanted forest on a quest for others of her kind. Joined along the way by the bumbling magician Schmendrick and the indomitable Molly Grue, the unicorn learns all about the joys and sorrows of life and love before meeting her destiny in the castle of a despondent monarch—and confronting the creature that would drive her kind to extinction....

In The Last Unicorn, renowned and beloved novelist Peter S. Beagle spins a poignant tale of love, loss, and wonder that has resonated with millions of readers around the world.

“Peter S. Beagle illuminates with his own particular magic.”—Ursula K. Le Guin

©2022 Peter S. Beagle (P)2022 Penguin Audio
Classics Fairy Tales Fantasy Fiction Heartfelt Feel-Good Magic Users

Critic reviews

“Comes alive and stays alive on bright intensity of imagination.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Written in lyrical prose and rife with both whimsical humor and philosophical ruminations on what it means to be human, Beagle spins a quasi-medieval fairy tale that remains timeless.”—Time

The Last Unicorn is the best book I have ever read. You need to read it. If you've already read it, you need to read it again.”—Patrick Rothfuss

What listeners say about The Last Unicorn

Highly rated for:

Lyrical Writing Poetic Storytelling Talented Narrator Enchanting Tale Beloved Classic Profound Themes
Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    508
  • 4 Stars
    77
  • 3 Stars
    31
  • 2 Stars
    12
  • 1 Stars
    6
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    432
  • 4 Stars
    87
  • 3 Stars
    20
  • 2 Stars
    9
  • 1 Stars
    4
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    455
  • 4 Stars
    50
  • 3 Stars
    31
  • 2 Stars
    8
  • 1 Stars
    9

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great Story, Lacking Narrator

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle is one of my favorite books. I grew up watching the movie, and have always loved the story and the characters. It may be because I love the movie so much that Orlagh Cassidy's narration came across so painfully flat. She's a professional actress, but she didn't really act at all. There are times when characters are scared, times when they're angry, times when they're doing other emotional things, and most of the time she just made them sound either deadpan or flippant. Really disappointing.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

great performance of this classic story

Really enjoyed this book, and couldn't have imagined a better reader, to be honest.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

A good early fantasy.

I enjoyed this book but was disappointed that the reviews were better than the actual story. I guessed much of the actions early on. I was also disappointed in Patrick Rothfuss' introduction. While this was interesting and raised, my expectations, whole reading this book, I kept wishing that Patrick Rothfuss would have better spent his time finishing up his own trilogy ( as we've been waiting for the "Door of Stone" for years. Narrator did a good job.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

I will definitely read this every year

This is fantasy. Fabulous, immersive, perfect fantasy. Everything in the introduction is true, for the rest of my life I will be rereading this book.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Love this book

There was Nothing that I didn’t like about this book. Can’t wait for the next book This way home

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Wonderful story given mediocre treatment in audio

The Last Unicorn itself deserves all the praise that can be heaped upon it. It is by turns clever, profound, laugh-out-loud funny, sophisticated, heartfelt, and bittersweet, each of these qualities revealed with a deft precision and panache, perfectly balanced each against the other in a deceptively light style that is perfectly transparent to the casual reader.

It is my favorite book, and I own at least ten copies in various editions. This is apparently the only thing I have in common with the introducer, about whose inane scribblings the less said the better. I could not finish the introduction.

The audiobook narration is, even allowing for my high expectations, a bit disappointing. None of the numerous songs and poems are actually sung or dramatized, as the best narrators seem to do (I am relatively new to audiobooks, but thinking of Rob Inglis' LotR or Stefan Rudnicki's Vance narrations here). This alone might be forgivable, but the narrator also fumbles the delivery of much of the book, routinely emphasizing the wrong words in a sentence, though less often in dialog than in expository passages, almost as though she doesn't quite grasp the meaning. Her range of character voices is narrow, with some being more convincing than others (e.g., her Haggard is pretty good, but her Schmendrick doesn't land quite right, a major problem).

Maybe a thorough pre-reading wasn't done, maybe the direction was sloppy, I dunno and don't feel qualified to guess. What I do know is that the end result doesn't quite gel for this listener. I really wanted it to be great, but as it stands I'm repeatedly jarred out of my immersion in the story by these drawbacks.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

22 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Transformative

I've read this book many times in my life and I love it more with each reading. Every time it changes how I see the world for a long while, colors are brighter and there are hints of magic that I see and feel in the everyday. It won't speak to every souls this way but it does to mine.

My only disappointment with the narration is that she missed that the book is really an epic poem and should be read that way. It's how I read and how I have read it to my children. Otherwise it's a beautiful telling of the story.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

I Wept for the Beauty of It!

I gave this audible book a 5 overall, then tried to do the same for the performance and story--they deserve it!--but for some reason the program wouldn't let me give more than 4 for them. I was spellbound by the beauty of its poetic prose, amazed and wanting to listen again and again, and to read it all with my eyes, too. Sadly, listening in my kitchen as I went about chores caused me to miss some parts. I hated all interruptions. I am a writer, and I learned in a college class to copy portions of writings I wanted to emulate, to write them over and over until my own creations improved in that dirction. That was more than 40 years ago, and back then I had no interest in trying that exercise after that creative writing class ended... until now. If I could reach a tenth of the quality of this story in my own work, I would be excellently fulfilled.

I don't know what my favorite part was; it was all like a long, amazing dream. If I could memorize it all, I might feel like a real poet in the tradition of the anceint epics, and I don't recall loving any anceint epics as much.

I love the fresh originality of these characters. The story gave nodding appreciation for the fairytale genre, lifting the archtypes up for inspection, and yet I didn't feel that any of the characters were sterrotypes. I look forward to growing thorugh this story as I listen to or read it again and again and discover new depths of meaning and glory.

The reader did a great job of narration and character voices, so that I could tell who was speaking by the sounds of her voice. Somehow the voices resembled those in the movie, though the written version is so much better than that good movie. The Last Unicorn is a classic like no other.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

The Last Unicorn

I loved this book so much! I watched the movie as a kid and it was one of my favorites! Once I found out it was a Book I had to read it! It did not disappoint 👏 🙌 👌 😍

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Story of rescue and redemption tinged with regret

More in-depth than the video although the video offered visual interpretations as well as musical ones all in all copies of all this title should be enjoyed.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!