Margaret Hale moves from the country into the inner-city and starts to learn what life is like for the workers. Elizabeth Gaskell highlights the difference between the middle and working classes in this tale set in the time of the Industrial Revolution. A largely autobiographical story, she also highlights the good that each group can do for each...

The story of a dark and dangerous love, set on the moors surrounding the looming, oppressive and isolated house, Wuthering Heights.

Evelyn Waugh's acidly funny and daring satire, Vile Bodies reveals the darkness and vulnerability that lurks beneath the glittering surface of the high life. In the years following the First World War a new generation emerges, wistful and vulnerable beneath the glitter. The Bright Young Things of twenties' Mayfair, with their paradoxical mix of inn...

Pat Hobby is an ageing film writer who used to do well, but these days is low on ideas that pay, until he stumbles across someone else's flash of inspiration.

These UNABRIDGED short stories largely depict middle-class human relationships within and outside the family written with biting satire, irony, much humour and a pervading sadness.

The 'little cleric from Essex' Father Brown features in this intriguing detective story from master of twists and turns G. K. Chesterton. A man's body is found in a passage, and the suspect must be found. But what motive could have possessed someone to kill in such cold blood? A listener will find out...with a few unexpected surprises along the way...

Dorothea is on a quest to find heroism in ordinary people, an enthralling journey which encompasses both highs and lows. Praised by Virginia Woolf as one of the only novels 'written for grown-up people', Middlemarch is a highly accomplished story, whose characters are involving and intreguing. Dorothea's story interlinks powerfully and tantalisin...

A family living on the edge of the river struggle with the thought of losing their livelyhood, whilst battling to keep family relationships together. Maggie and Tom, brother and sister, try to save their livelihood as their parents flounder in the face of modernization. Maggie befriends the disabled son of a family rival in an attempt to build bri...

The first episode, Astronomy for Dummies, of the BBC Radio 4 comedy series, All of the Planet's Wonders, in which award-winning comedian Josie Long attempts to better herself through learning from reference books, with help from Irish comedian Maeve Higgins. Originally broadcast 18 February 2009 and repeated on 28 December 2010. In this episode Jos...

The second episode, The Enlightenment, of the BBC Radio 4 comedy series, All of the Planet's Wonders, in which award-winning comedian Josie Long attempts to better herself through learning from reference books, with help from Irish comedian Maeve Higgins. Originally broadcast 25 February 2009 and repeated on 29 December 2010. In the second episode,...

The third episode, Obscure Animal Facts, of the BBC Radio 4 comedy series, All of the Planet's Wonders, in which award-winning comedian Josie Long attempts to better herself through learning from reference books, with help from Irish comedian Maeve Higgins. Originally broadcast 4 March 2009 and repeated on 30 December 2010. In Obscure Animal Facts...

Alice, Hanging in There is the second of three comic tales from BBC Radio 4's The Greengrocer's Apostrophe, inspired by those hand-written signs offering "Apple's and Banana's" which can be found in every town in Britain. Originally broadcast in the Afternoon Reading slot on 29 September 2010. When Alice's high-flying career stalls, she finds a nov...

BBC Radio 4 sitcom written by and starring Sanjeev Kohli and Donald McLeary, set in a Glasgow corner shop. In Series One, which was first broadcast in 2007, the nettle of the ugly spectre of racism was grasped, a religious festival was invented and an impacted cola bottle (sour) was removed from one of Ramesh's premolars. We were also introduced to...

The De-Magowaning of Ramesh. Corner shop owner Ramesh has toothache and Sanjay embraces retail.

The first play in Pilgrim Series 2, a collection of four BBC Radio 4 modern-day fantasy adventures written by Sebastian Baczkiewicz and starring Paul Hilton as Pilgrim. The Drowned Church was originally broadcast in the Afternoon Play slot on 31 August 2010. What if all the myths and folktales of these islands were true? And what if they were not o...

A series of four BBC Radio 4 modern-day fantasy adventures written by Sebastian Baczkiewicz and starring Paul Hilton as Pilgrim. Pilgrim Series 2 was originally a weekly broadcast in the Afternoon Play slots from 31 August-21 September 2010. The plays in Pilgrim Series 2 are thrilling, dark and contemporary. They're set in a very recognisable, very...

The last play of four in Pilgrim Series 2, a collection of BBC Radio 4 modern-day fantasy adventures written by Sebastian Baczkiewicz and starring Paul Hilton as Pilgrim. Hope Springs was originally broadcast in the Afternoon Play slot on 21 September 2010. What if all the myths and folktales of these islands were true? And what if they were not on...

The second play of four in Pilgrim Series 2, a collection of BBC Radio 4 modern-day fantasy adventures written by Sebastian Baczkiewicz and starring Paul Hilton as Pilgrim. The Lost Hotel was originally broadcast in the Afternoon Play slot on 7 September 2010. What if all the myths and folktales of these islands were true? And what if they were not...

oin Brett Westwood and Stephen Moss in this fascinating guide to the sounds of our most popular coastal birds, as heard on BBC Radio 4. In the fourth of our series of bird guides, Brett Westwood is joined by keen birdwatcher Stephen Moss on the north coast of Devon, and with the help of wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson they offer a practical a...

The power of English-and the "English of Power", as the language extends its influence from Court to Edinburgh. Melvyn Bragg goes to Edinburgh and the house of John Knox, the great Scottish apostle of the Reformation, who preached in English. Latin was replaced by English as the language of the Church when Henry VIII broke with Rome. And the 1611 K...

Conquest, trade and immigration have woven dozens of languages into English. Melvyn Bragg visits Liverpool, home of Scouse, an Irish-based variant of northern English made famous by the Beatles and countless comedians. By the mid-nineteenth century the port of Liverpool ranked second to London and became home to immigrants from all over the world w...