In 1666, The Great Plague scorched London whilst the north of England remained untouched until, in a small community of leadminers and hill farmers, a bolt of cloth arrived from the capital. The tailor who cut the cloth had no way of knowing that the damp fabric carried with it bubonic infection. So begins the 'Year of Wonders', based on real-life...

A collection featuring a series of short stories, anecdotes, musings, essays and fables by Alphonse Daudet and extracts from the magazine 'The Idler' amongst others, written by the author of 'Three Men in a Boat', Jerome K. Jerome.

A collection of love stories including: 'The Sphinx Without a Secret' by Oscar Wilde; 'For Better or Worse' by W.W Jacobs; 'Angela' by W.S Gilbert; 'Mr & Mrs Dove' by Katherine Mansfield'; 'Georgie Porgie' by Rudyard Kipling; 'Genefer' by Sabine Baring-Gould; 'The Singing Lesson' by Katherine Mansfield; 'The Patch on the Quilt' by Sapper; 'The...

The gloriously farcical story of Paul Pennyfeather, sent down from Oxford in outrageous circumstances, who finds himself a position as a schoolteacher at Llanabba Castle alongside a cast of oddballs, rascals and criminals. Then Sports Day arrives, and with it the delectable Margot Beste-Chetwynde, a parent of staggering glamour and truly suspect mo...

Constance Chatterley feels trapped in her sexless marriage to the invalid Sir Clifford. Unable to fulfil his wife emotionally or physically, Clifford encourages her to have a liaison with a man of their own class. But Connie is attracted instead to her husband's gamekeeper and embarks on a passionate affair that brings new life to her stifled exist...

Jimmy Crocker, aka Piccadilly Jim, is a lively young American ex-newspaper man who meets Ann Chester, the girl of his dreams, in London. As they set sail together for New York, Jim struggles with a secret - he once wrote a bad review of her first book of poetry, and Ann has no idea, yet.

A sharply comic novel with shades of Waugh's own experiences, 'The Ordeal of Gilbert Penfold - A Conversation Piece', recounts a period of mental confusion and breakdown in the life of Gilbert Penfold, an established novelist of mature years. Prone to moments of paranoia and memory-loss, he attempts to cure himself with a tropical cruise. But his a...

'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists' tells the story of a group of working men who are joined one day by Frank Owen, a journeyman-prophet with a vision of a just society. Owen's spirited attacks on the greed and dishonesty of the capitalist system rouse his fellow men to rise up and fight for a fairer Britain. A classic novel about the English wo...

Holly Martins arrives in post war Vienna to discover that his old friend Harry Lime has just died in a car accident. On hearing from Major Calloway of his criminal activities and racketeering, Martins vows to clear his friend's reputation and uncover the truth to discover what really happened to Harry Lime.

Nicolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) wrote only one major work as a gift for his ruling Prince, Lorenzo de Medici. When the senior civil servant role he had held for fourteen years came to an end due to the downfall of the Republic in 1512, he poured out his ideas and resentment in his writings. 'The Prince' has remained a classic ever since; valued for...

When he hears her favourite Beatles song, Toru Watanabe recalls his first love Naoko, the girlfriend of his best friend Kizuki. Immediately he is transported back almost twenty years to his student days in late 60s Tokyo, adrift in a world of uneasy friendships, casual sex, passion, loss and desire - and the two women he found himself torn between,...

Our narrator is sent on an errand to visit an old man, Simon Wheeler by a friend to find an old acquaintance of his. This is clearly a joke, because once our narrator gets there and asks about the acquaintance, Wheeler immediately begins to tell a long, boring, droll story about Jim Smiley. Jim Smiley is addicted to gambling. He bets on anything fr...

English poet and playwright, Robert Browning's mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets. Here his finest work is read by James Mason, Boris Karloff and Robert Donat.

When the Doctor arrives on Earth in the far future, he is horrified to find the planet beset by famine and starvation. England is a barren wasteland, and scientists are desperately seeding the ground to make the crops grow again. But now it seems that something even worse is happening. Karl Baring, the owner of research facility The Grange, has bee...

Visiting the English seaside town of Cromer in the summer of 1932, the Doctor happens upon the strange world of the Cromer Palace of Curios. The young Ernestina Scott is unusually beguiled by one of the museum's exhibits, and when the Doctor befriends her, they unwittingly embark upon a terrifying escapade. Chased by animated dolls through a nightm...

Returning for a second series, the nation's favourite agony uncle - Mr. Spectator - continues to offer his wit and wisdom on the morals and manners of his countrymen in his daily writings; but who exactly is this mysterious Spectator, and why does everyone want to find him all of a sudden?Embarking on a quest to discover the identity of London's mo...

The very first adventure of radio legend and national hero Special Agent Dick Barton. Captain Richard Barton, late of the Commandos, made his radio debut on the Light Programme in 1946 and quickly went on to become Britain's most popular hero. For years the nation tuned in to hear the famous signature tune, Devil's Gallop, herald another cliff-hang...

Captain Richard Barton, late of the Commandos, made his radio debut on the Light Programme in 1946 and quickly went on to become Britain's most popular hero. This is the 1972 re-make of the very first adventure of the radio legend.

BBC Radio 4 Dramatisation starring Jamie Glover and featuring Jasmine Hyde. Charles Dickens was, for a time, Editor of a daily newspaper. This series takes an imaginative look at how Dickens would have tackled bringing the news to the masses. Railway Kings As Editor of a new campaigning weekly, 'The Herald', he has just appointed a Chief Correspond...

Sebastiene was human...once. He might look like a nineteenth-century nobleman, but in truth he is a ruthless hunter. He likes nothing more than luring difficult opposition to a planet, and then hunting them down for sport. And now he's caught them all - from Zargregs to Moogs, and even the odd Eternal. In fact, Sebastiene is after only one more pri...

Doctor Who is strangely concerned about Professor Horner's plan to cut open an ancient barrow near the peaceful English village of Devil's End; equally worried is Miss Hawthorne, the local white witch, who foretells a terrible disaster if he goes ahead. Determined that the Professor should is Mr Magister, the new vicar whose secret ceremonies are d...