
Mr. Toppit
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $23.07
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Simon Vance
-
By:
-
Charles Elton
About this listen
“And out of the Darkwood Mr. Toppit comes, and he comes not for you, or for me, but for all of us.”
When the Hayseed Chronicles, an obscure series of children’s books, becomes world famous, millions of readers debate the significance of that enigmatic last line and of the shadowy figure, Mr. Toppit, who dominates the books. The author, Arthur Hayman, an unsuccessful screenwriter mown down by a concrete truck in Soho, never reaps the benefits of the books’ success. The legacy passes to his widow, Martha, and her children - the fragile Rachel, and Luke, reluctantly immortalized as Luke Hayseed, the central character of his father’s books. But others want their share, particularly Laurie, the overweight stranger from California who comforted Arthur as he lay dying and has a mysterious agenda of her own that will change all their lives, for buried deep in the books lie secrets which threaten to be revealed as the family begins to crumble under the heavy burden of their inheritance.
Spanning several decades, from the heyday of the British film industry after the war to the cut-throat world of show business in Los Angeles, Mr. Toppit is a riveting tale of the unexpected effects of sudden fame and fortune. Not since Jonathan Coe’s What a Carve Up! has a novel managed to capture a family and a society to such wonderfully funny and painful effect.
Charles Elton worked as a designer and editor in publishing before becoming a director of the literary agency Curtis Brown. Since 1991 he has worked in television and has been executive producer in drama at ITV since 2000. Among his productions are The Railway Children, the Oscar-nominated short Syrup, Andrew Davies’ adaptation of Northanger Abbey, and the recent series Time of Your Life.
©2009 Darkwood, Ltd. (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
A Spot of Bother
- A Novel
- By: Mark Haddon
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
George Hall is an unobtrusive man. A little distant, perhaps, a little cautious, not quite at ease with the emotional demands of fatherhood or of manly bonhomie. “The secret of contentment, George felt, lay in ignoring many things completely.” Some things in life can’t be ignored, however: his tempestuous daughter Katie’s deeply inappropriate boyfriend Ray, for instance, or the sudden appearance of a red circular rash on his hip.
-
-
Bother with this one
- By Book Club Gal on 09-29-06
By: Mark Haddon
-
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
- Reese's Book Club (A Novel)
- By: Gail Honeyman
- Narrated by: Cathleen McCarron
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she's thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office.
-
-
Please be warned
- By N. Thompson on 06-20-17
By: Gail Honeyman
-
The Goldfinch
- By: Donna Tartt
- Narrated by: David Pittu
- Length: 32 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America and a drama of enthralling force and acuity. It begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art.
-
-
Boy, am I in the minority on this one.
- By Bon Ami on 11-04-13
By: Donna Tartt
-
Sometimes I Lie
- By: Alice Feeney
- Narrated by: Stephanie Racine
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Amber wakes up in a hospital. She can't move. She can't speak. She can't open her eyes. She can hear everyone around her, but they have no idea. Amber doesn't remember what happened, but she has a suspicion her husband had something to do with it. Alternating between her paralyzed present, the week before her accident, and a series of childhood diaries from 20 years ago, this brilliant psychological thriller asks: Is something really a lie if you believe it's the truth?
-
-
Wow!!!
- By Zoey&Jaspers Mommy on 03-21-18
By: Alice Feeney
-
One Plus One
- A Novel
- By: Jojo Moyes
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Bower, Ben Elliot, Nicola Stanton, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Suppose your life sucks. A lot. Your husband has done a vanishing act, your teenage stepson is being bullied, and your math-whiz daughter has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that you can't afford to pay for. That's Jess' life in a nutshell - until an unexpected knight-in-shining-armor offers to rescue them. Only Jess' knight turns out to be Geeky Ed, the obnoxious tech millionaire whose vacation home she happens to clean. But Ed has big problems of his own, and driving the dysfunctional family to the Math Olympiad feels like his first unselfish act in ages...maybe ever.
-
-
Sometimes I need a book that is just fun to read.
- By Kathy on 07-05-14
By: Jojo Moyes
-
Watching You
- By: Lisa Jewell
- Narrated by: Gabrielle Glaister
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Melville Heights is one of the nicest neighborhoods in Bristol, England. It’s the sort of place where doctors and lawyers and old-money academics live. It’s not the sort of place where people get stabbed in the back 30 times with a kitchen knife in their own homes. Someone must have seen something. Newlywed Joey Mullen, for example, recently returned from four years of working in Ibiza. She and her husband, Alfie, are eager to find a place of their own in her hometown. But Joey finds herself distracted by the man next door, Tom Fitzwilliam.
-
-
Soooo good!!
- By amanda fallis on 02-06-19
By: Lisa Jewell
-
A Spot of Bother
- A Novel
- By: Mark Haddon
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
George Hall is an unobtrusive man. A little distant, perhaps, a little cautious, not quite at ease with the emotional demands of fatherhood or of manly bonhomie. “The secret of contentment, George felt, lay in ignoring many things completely.” Some things in life can’t be ignored, however: his tempestuous daughter Katie’s deeply inappropriate boyfriend Ray, for instance, or the sudden appearance of a red circular rash on his hip.
-
-
Bother with this one
- By Book Club Gal on 09-29-06
By: Mark Haddon
-
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
- Reese's Book Club (A Novel)
- By: Gail Honeyman
- Narrated by: Cathleen McCarron
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she's thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office.
-
-
Please be warned
- By N. Thompson on 06-20-17
By: Gail Honeyman
-
The Goldfinch
- By: Donna Tartt
- Narrated by: David Pittu
- Length: 32 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America and a drama of enthralling force and acuity. It begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art.
-
-
Boy, am I in the minority on this one.
- By Bon Ami on 11-04-13
By: Donna Tartt
-
Sometimes I Lie
- By: Alice Feeney
- Narrated by: Stephanie Racine
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Amber wakes up in a hospital. She can't move. She can't speak. She can't open her eyes. She can hear everyone around her, but they have no idea. Amber doesn't remember what happened, but she has a suspicion her husband had something to do with it. Alternating between her paralyzed present, the week before her accident, and a series of childhood diaries from 20 years ago, this brilliant psychological thriller asks: Is something really a lie if you believe it's the truth?
-
-
Wow!!!
- By Zoey&Jaspers Mommy on 03-21-18
By: Alice Feeney
-
One Plus One
- A Novel
- By: Jojo Moyes
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Bower, Ben Elliot, Nicola Stanton, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Suppose your life sucks. A lot. Your husband has done a vanishing act, your teenage stepson is being bullied, and your math-whiz daughter has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that you can't afford to pay for. That's Jess' life in a nutshell - until an unexpected knight-in-shining-armor offers to rescue them. Only Jess' knight turns out to be Geeky Ed, the obnoxious tech millionaire whose vacation home she happens to clean. But Ed has big problems of his own, and driving the dysfunctional family to the Math Olympiad feels like his first unselfish act in ages...maybe ever.
-
-
Sometimes I need a book that is just fun to read.
- By Kathy on 07-05-14
By: Jojo Moyes
-
Watching You
- By: Lisa Jewell
- Narrated by: Gabrielle Glaister
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Melville Heights is one of the nicest neighborhoods in Bristol, England. It’s the sort of place where doctors and lawyers and old-money academics live. It’s not the sort of place where people get stabbed in the back 30 times with a kitchen knife in their own homes. Someone must have seen something. Newlywed Joey Mullen, for example, recently returned from four years of working in Ibiza. She and her husband, Alfie, are eager to find a place of their own in her hometown. But Joey finds herself distracted by the man next door, Tom Fitzwilliam.
-
-
Soooo good!!
- By amanda fallis on 02-06-19
By: Lisa Jewell
-
The Great Believers
- By: Rebecca Makkai
- Narrated by: Michael Crouch
- Length: 18 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing in an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying and after his friend Nico's funeral, the virus circles closer and closer to Yale himself. Soon the only person he has left is Fiona, Nico's little sister.
-
-
A story for all time
- By Carla jo Thompson on 08-06-18
By: Rebecca Makkai
-
The Making of Us
- A Novel
- By: Lisa Jewell
- Narrated by: Helen Duff
- Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lydia, Dean, and Robyn live very different lives, but each of them, independently, has always felt that something was missing. What they don't know is that a letter is about to arrive that will turn their lives upside down. It's a letter containing a secret - one that will bind them together and show them what love and family and friendship really mean.
-
-
Extraordinary Stories
- By JimKnott on 08-16-18
By: Lisa Jewell
-
The Last Letter from Your Lover
- A Novel
- By: Jojo Moyes
- Narrated by: Susan Lyons
- Length: 15 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A sophisticated, pause-resisting double love story spanning 40 years-an unforgettable Brief Encounter for our times. It is 1960. When Jennifer Stirling wakes up in the hospital, she can remember nothing-not the tragic car accident that put her there, not her husband, not even who she is. She feels like a stranger in her own life until she stumbles upon an impassioned letter, signed simply "B", asking her to leave her husband. Years later, in 2003, a journalist named Ellie discovers the same enigmatic letter in a forgotten file in her newspaper's archives.
-
-
What's so Great About Jennifer?
- By FanB14 on 03-04-14
By: Jojo Moyes
-
Try Not to Breathe
- A Novel
- By: Holly Seddon
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Knowelden, Katharine Lee McEwan
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alex Dale is lost. Destructive habits have cost her a marriage and a journalism career. All she has left is her routine: a morning run until her body aches, then a few hours of forgettable work before the past grabs hold and drags her down. Every day is treading water, every night is drowning. Until Alex discovers Amy Stevenson. Amy Stevenson, who was just another girl from a nearby town until the day she was found unconscious after a merciless assault. Amy Stevenson, who has been in a coma for fifteen years, forgotten by the world.
-
-
I lost sleep!
- By T-AudibleAddict-do NOT cure on 02-25-16
By: Holly Seddon
-
Calling Major Tom
- By: David M. Barnett
- Narrated by: David Thorpe
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Calling Major Tom is a funny, uplifting tale of friendship and community about a man who has given up on the world...but discovers in the most unlikely way that it might not have given up on him. We all know someone like Thomas. The grumpy next-door neighbour who complains to the residents' committee about the state of your front lawn. The man who tuts when you don't have the correct change at the checkout. The colleague who sends an all-company email when you accidentally use the last drop of milk.
-
-
4 stars!
- By MisBis on 05-25-19
By: David M. Barnett
-
Holding
- A Novel
- By: Graham Norton
- Narrated by: Graham Norton
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The remote Irish village of Duneen has known little drama, but when human remains are discovered on an old farm, suspected to be those of Tommy Burke - a former lover of two different inhabitants - the village's dark past begins to unravel. As the frustrated sergeant PJ Collins struggles to solve a genuine case for the first time in his life, he unearths a community's worth of anger and resentments, secrets and regret.
-
-
Loved it!
- By Myra on 04-01-18
By: Graham Norton
-
The Perfect Lie
- By: Emily Barr
- Narrated by: Jilly Bond, Penelope Rawlins, Julia Franklin, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For Lucy Riddick, Venice has always been the dream destination, the ideal place to lose herself. And now she needs to do just that. The secret she's been keeping has finally caught up with her and Lucy needs to disappear - fast. But what if, when she sets foot in Venice, Lucy finds the one thing she has been running from?
-
-
Fun and Absorbing
- By Jen Fabbri on 10-15-15
By: Emily Barr
-
Ghosted
- A Novel
- By: Rosie Walsh
- Narrated by: Katherine Press
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Sarah meets Eddie, they connect instantly and fall in love. To Sarah, it seems as though her life has finally begun. And it's mutual: It's as though Eddie has been waiting for her, too. Sarah has never been so certain of anything. So when Eddie leaves for a long-booked vacation and promises to call from the airport, she has no cause to doubt him. But he doesn't call. Sarah's friends tell her to forget about him, but she can't. She knows something's happened - there must be an explanation.
-
-
Boring, tedious, not worth my time. I am so aggravated that I preordered this book. It was absurd. Much ado about nothing!
- By Pamela M. on 07-28-18
By: Rosie Walsh
-
Secret Smile
- By: Nicci French
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Miranda's sister Kerri has a new boyfriend. He's a handsome charmer who seems to dote on Kerri. But Brendan isn't the man he says he is. Miranda should know. She broke off her own affair with him just a few weeks ago when she found him reading her diary.
-
-
I want my 9 hours back
- By Ashley on 07-19-23
By: Nicci French
-
Her Last Words
- By: Kim Kelly
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thisbe Chisholm wants to be a writer. It’s 2007, a time of digital revolution and skyrocketing property prices, but she’s an old-fashioned girl. She longs only to tell the stories written on her heart. While her best friends, Penny and Jane, and her darling boyfriend, John, seem set for stellar careers in their chosen fields, Thisbe works nights as a hostess at a glitzy harbourside Sydney club - a job she despises but has paid the rent for the last three years since university graduation.
-
-
Loved it!
- By hansenfamily on 03-09-23
By: Kim Kelly
-
On Beauty
- By: Zadie Smith
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James
- Length: 18 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This wise, hilarious novel reminds us why Zadie Smith has rocketed to literary stardom. On Beauty is the story of an interracial family living in the university town of Wellington, Massachusetts, whose misadventures in the culture wars—on both sides of the Atlantic—serve to skewer everything from family life to political correctness to the combustive collision between the personal and the political. Full of dead-on wit and relentlessly funny, this tour de force confirms Zadie Smith's reputation as a major literary talent.
-
-
Somewhat Disappointed
- By Cherokee on 11-15-05
By: Zadie Smith
-
Revolutionary Road
- By: Richard Yates
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 11 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Perhaps Frank and April Wheeler married too young and started a family too early. Maybe Frank's job is dull. And April never saw herself as a housewife. Yet they have always lived on the assumption that greatness is only just around the corner. But now that certainty is about to unravel. With heartbreaking compassion and remorseless clarity, Richard Yates shows how Frank and April mortgage their spiritual birthright, betraying not only each other, but their best selves.
-
-
Movie vs Book
- By Sara on 01-29-14
By: Richard Yates
Editorial reviews
Luke Hayman has lived his life in the shadow of another Luke: the main character, named Luke Hayseed, in a series of books written by his father, Arthur. Throughout the books known as The Hayseed Chronicles an unseen character named Mr. Toppit keeps Luke Hayseed busy with an array of nearly impossible tasks; Luke Hayman has spent his days on the equally daunting task of convincing fans of the books that fact and fiction are two different things. But when an American tourist named Laurie finds a connection with Arthur during his dying moments in England and then brings The Hayseed Chronicles to an American audience the books become an international phenomenon that Luke and his family can’t escape.
In Mr. Toppit, Charles Elton weaves together the stories of pre-Hayseed Arthur and his wife, Martha; Luke and his sister, Rachel; and Laurie and her mother, Alma, to detail all the ways that unseen people (absent fathers, deceased children, lost siblings) can influence us. Narrator Simon Vance adjusts his voice for each character, giving Luke, Rachel, Martha, and their friends and neighbors unique English accents; saddling Laurie with a West Coast twang (and a slightly masculine voice to match her not-very-delicate personality); using a raspy, aged voice for Laurie’s nursing home-bound mother. But his narration mostly done from Luke’s point of view is classic coming-of-age, taking Luke from prep school exploits to post-grad rebellion without missing a beat. Blythe Copeland