I, Claudius is Robert Graves' riveting account of Ancient Rome in all of its madness and debauchery. First published in 1934 and written in the form of a secret autobiography, it endures as one of literature's most celebrated and compelling historical novels. Abhorred for his weakness and viewed by his family as little more than a stammering fool,...

Madame de Lafayette's classic tale of intrigue and love, La Princesse de ClŠves, dramatised for BBC Radio 3 and originally broadcast in the Drama on 3 slot on 28 February 2010. Set in the 16th Century, the play follows the life of a beautiful young lady newly presented to Court. It's the reign of Henri II and Mary Queen of Scots is safely en...

A BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Virgil's sweeping epic, starring Ralph Fiennes as Aeneas and Derek Jacobi as the Narrator. One of the classics of all time, The Aeneid was Virgil's last and greatest work. In it, he recounts in vivid imagery the legendary origin of the Roman Empire. The story begins after the Greeks have destroyed the city of Troy. Th...

Shrewsbury, 1139. The bloody civil war between King Stephen and Empress Maud has swept through the country towards the rural security of Brother Cadfael's monastery. The citizens of Worcester have fled, among them two orphaned children of noble stock, together with their tutor, a young nun. A Benedictine monk in whose care Lady Ermina and her broth...

When Fate and a chivalrous impulse combine to saddle Viscount Desford with a friendless, homeless waif in the engaging shape of Cherry Steane, who else should he turn to in such a scrape but his childhood playmate, Henrietta Silverdale? And although they refused to oblige their parents by marrying, they have always been the best of friends. But as...

January 1895. On a freezing morning in the heart of Paris, an army officer, Georges Picquart, witnesses a convicted spy, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, being publicly humiliated in front of twenty thousand spectators baying 'Death to the Jew! The officer is rewarded with promotion: Picquart is made the French army's youngest colonel and put in command of...

Recently named the Best Work of American Fiction in the last 25 years by the New York Times Book Review. First published in 1987, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, BELOVED has become a modern classic, read and re-read by people of all ages and races. Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a...

Two months before Adolf Hitler's rise to power, a young woman is found half naked and near death in the woods outside Berlin. The only clue to her identity is a handbill advertising a lecture by Albert Einstein. Psychiatrist Martin Kirsch little knows this will be his last case. Searching for the truth about his celebrated patient, he finds profess...

St Petersburg, 1911: Inna Feldman has fled the pogroms to take refuge with relatives in Russia's capital city. Welcomed into the flamboyant Leman family, she is apprenticed into their violin-making workshop. But revolution is in the air and, as society begins to fracture, she is forced to choose between her heart and her head. She loves her broodin...

In 1913 an orphan girl is delivered to The Hall of Eternal Splendour, seemingly destined to live out her life as a prostitute in its smoky backrooms. Yet one day hope appears in the unlikely form of a customs inspector, a modest man who will take Pan Yuliang as his concubine and introduce her to a glamorous new life in 1920s' Shanghai: a life of lo...

The year is 1859 and Hero Hollis, beautiful and headstrong niece of the American consul, arrives in Zanzibar. It is an earthly paradise; it is also the last outpost of the Slave Trade. A passionate opponent of slavery, Hero is swept into a turmoil of royal intrigue, abduction, piracy, smuggling and a virulent cholera epidemic. There in Zanzibar, th...

Germany 1927: the English filmmaker Henry Whitaker is on a desperate pilgrimage to the dying Weimar Republic. The present day: Henry's daughter Miranda is on a quest to understand what happened to her mother, a refugee Henry met and married in Germany at the end of the war. Did Henry - as his mother has always supposed - drive his wife to her death...

The year is 1348 and the first plague victim has reached English shores. Panic erupts around the country and a small band of travellers comes together to outrun the deadly disease, unaware that something far more deadly is - in fact - travelling with them. The ill-assorted company - a scarred trader in holy relics, a conjurer, two musicians, a heal...

1861. Growing up in rural Japan, Sachi has always felt different, her pale skin setting her apart. When she is 11, a princess passes through her village, sweeping her off to the women's palace in Edo, home to 3000 women and only on eman - the young shogun. Sachi is chosen as his concubine. But Japan is changing. As civil war erupts, Sachi flees for...

Paul Craddock is still young when he is invalided out of the army after the Boer War and he discovers the neglected estate of Shallowford in a secluded corner of Devon. It seems remote from the march of progress. But as storm clouds gather over Europe, Paul learns that no part of England, however remote, can escape the challenge of the times.

1912-1940. A generation fallen. A country that will never be the same again. Nowhere in England avoids the searing loss of young men during the First World War and the remote Devon village of Shallowford is no exception. Many never return and the lives of those who do come back are changed forever. Paul Craddock must try to rebuild the estate and,...

When young and beautiful governess Kate Malvern finds herself unemployed, she is taken in by Minerva Broome, the aunt she has never met, and whisked away to the majestic country home of Staplewood. However, things are not as they seem: strange things start to happen in the manor and Staplewood soon turns from an inviting stately house to a cold a...

The riveting story of Margaret Pole, daughter of George, Duke of Clarence, one of the few surviving members of the Plantagenet dynasty after the Wars of the Roses. Plantagenet, once carried proudly by Margaret like a crown upon her head, is now, at the end of the 15th century, the most dangerous name in England...

When 12-year-old Katherine Howard comes to live in the Duchess of Norfolk's household, poor relation Cat Tilney is deeply suspicious of her yet, despite herself, Cat is drawn to her. Summoned to court at 17, Katherine leaves Cat in the company of her ex-lover, Francis. Within months, the king has set aside his Dutch wife Anne for Katherine. But whe...

Paul and Claire Craddock have grown older in years - but not in spirit. World War II is over. But there are new battles to be fought and won. The new property laws enable speculators to reap huge profits from agricultural lands, and Paul's livelihood is threatened. With the help of his family, Paul struggles to preserve the happiness and peace he h...

Agincourt is one of the epic battles of history. It was fought between two badly matched armies that met in atrocious conditions on St Crispin's Day 1415. It has always been held to be the triumph of the longbow against the armoured knight, the common man against the feudal aristocrats. But these are myths. Bernard Cornwell depicts the reality behi...