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David Timson talks about Charles Dickens, much loved for his great contribution to classic English Literature.

David Timson talks about Charles Dickens, much loved for his great contribution to classic English Literature. Listen to The Pickwick Papers narrated by Anton Lesser.

David Timson talks about Charles Dickens, much loved for his great contribution to classic English Literature. Listen to Dombey and Son narrated by David Timson.

Roy McMillan talks about Don Quixote, one the most influential novels in Western literature.

David Timson talks about Charles Dickens, much loved for his great contribution to classic English Literature. Listen to Great Expectations narrated by Anton Lesser.

David Timson talks about Charles Dickens, much loved for his great contribution to classic English Literature.

David Timson talks about Charles Dickens, much loved for his great contribution to classic English Literature.

David Timson talks about Charles Dickens, much loved for his great contribution to classic English Literature. Listen to Little Dorrit narrated by Anton Lesser.

Ethan Frome is an entrancing but sad story of a poverty-stricken Massachusetts farmer caught in a loveless marriage. An emerging love for his young cousin leads to one day of explosive emotions with tragic consequences.

Homer's Odyssey is the thrilling and moving tale of the wanderings of the hero Odysseus after the end of the Trojan war. For ten years he experiences storms, shipwrecks, and seductions as he tries to find a way home to Ithaca, contending with the wrath of Poseidon but protected by Pallas Athena. Meanwhile, his wife Penelope is beset by suitors who believe him dead.

English literature may very well be the greatest body of imaginative writing the world has yet seen. The human experience has been understood, interpreted, and conveyed by writers of genius in a tradition stretching through six or more centuries, from Chaucer to Philip Larking, from Defoe to William Golding.

Reader Stephen Critchelow has spent a lifetime collecting and reading works like these and, with carefully chosen music, brings a strong sense of atmosphere to this recording. "Rats" provides a great listening experience for dark autumn evenings.

Many of the greatest lovers, and the greatest love scenes in Western literature, are to be found in Shakespeare. The fresh but impassioned Romeo and Juliet, the resilient wit of Petruchio and Kate, the ardent exchanges of Lorenzo and Jessica ,and the anguished tragedies of Othello and Desdemona and Antony and Cleopatra - they all show love and courtship in its many forms.

This selection of Hardy's poetry does full justice to its humanity, integrity, humour and evocative power, ranging from charming anthology pieces such as Weathers to the great love poems he wrote after the death of his first wife and his meditations on war and phillosophy.

The 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns (1759 - 1796), one of the most popular of poets, was celebrated in 2009. A pioneer of the Romantic movement, works such as "A Red, Red Rose", "A Man’s a Man for a’ That", and the ubiquitous "Auld Lang Syne", have made him an international figure. Naxos AudioBooks’ popular Great Poets series marked the anniversary with this audio, bringing together all the key works.

Very much in the style of L. Frank Baum ( The Wizard of Oz), this story shows that Harry Potter was not the first remarkably popular world hit in junior literature. A Kidnapped Santa Claus, a fun fantasy, is actually a continuation of the first novel Baum wrote in this vein, The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus. In it, he charts his hero's life from a foundling in the forest to becoming all children's favorite uncle. This story, though, has the advantage of brevity.

For a century Bram Stoker's Dracula has reigned supreme as the undisputed masterpiece of horror writing. We have all grown up under the shadow of the elegant Count, at once an attractive, brutal and erotic creature of the night. The gothic tale of Frankenstein and his construction of a human being which runs amok, has, with the help of numerous films, become one of the most vivid horror stories.

When Catherine Morland, a country clergyman's daughter, is invited to spend a season in Bath with the fashionable high society, little does she imagine the delights and perils that await her. Captivated and disconcerted by what she finds, and introduced to the joys of "Gothic novels" by her new friend Isabella, Catherine longs for mystery and romance. When she is invited to stay with the beguiling Henry Tilney and his family at Northanger Abbey, she expects mystery and intrigue at every turn. However, the truth turns out to be even stranger than fiction.

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam, in the famous translation by Edward Fitzgerald, remains one of the most popular poems. Here, it forms the main work on the first half of this program, along with other shorter poems by other leading Persian and Indian figures, including Rumi, Sa'di, and Rabindranath Tagore.

Thomas Hardy wrote this engaging seasonal story for The Father Christmas Annual in 1877, which was very early in his career. One can just imagine the family sitting by the fireside after the big Christmas lunch, and listening as one member of the family read the story (set in the Wessex countryside he knew so well). By this time, he was already making his mark as a writer. One of his greatest achievements, Far From the Madding Crowd was published three years earlier.