The first of Trollope’s Barsetshire novels, ’The Warden' concerns the moral dilemma of the Reverend Septimus Harding, who finds himself at the centre of a bitter conflict between defenders of...

In the polluted and poverty-ridden Coketown, Louisa and Tom Gradgrind endure a cold and loveless childhood at the hands of their self-satisfied and unimaginative father Thomas. Starved of...

Mark Antony, one of the three rulers of the Roman World, has become the thrall of the fascinating Cleopatra. Affairs of state call him to Rome, but the attractions of the Queen of Egypt prove...

Rudolf Rassendyll bears the name of an English duke and a remarkable resemblance to the King of Ruritania, the result of a scandalous liaison between an earlier Rassendyll and the royal Elphbergs....

When orphan Pip meets the escaped convict Magwitch in an overgrown churchyard on the Kent marshes, little does he know that the incident will change his life forever. Some years later, now...

Daphne du Maurier's young heroine meets the charming Maxim de Winter and despite her youth, they marry and go to Manderley, his home in Cornwall. There, the sinister housekeeper Mrs Danvers and...

The Yorkists have emerged victorious from the civil wars and Edward IV wears the English crown. But Edward's misshapen brother Richard harbours kingly ambitions and will stop at nothing to achieve...

There were four of us: George, William Samuel Harris, and myself, and Montmorency (the dog). We were in need of some rest, and it was George who first suggested a trip up the river. He said it...

Hailed by George Bernard Shaw as Dickens's 'masterpiece among masterpieces' for its social indictment and sense of humanity, Little Dorrit is both an examination of Victorian England and a...

The story opens in the country parsonage of Dr Primrose, a kindly man who has a good heart, a good family and a good income. Suddenly, his idyllic life is cruelly devastated by a series of...

Miriam Margolyes reads ‘A Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens.

Ebenezer Scrooge refuses to accept that Christmas is a time for peace and goodwill to all men. Whilst those less...

If this is the best of all possible worlds, then what must the others be like?

'Candide', published simultaneously in five European capitals in 1759, became an instant bestseller and is...

Charles Dickens' classic novel stars Alex Jennings as Charles Dickens and Pauline Quirke as Mrs Boffin. Adapted by Mike Walker.Following his father's death, John Harmon returns to London to...

The noble Veronese houses of Montague and Capulet are locked in a bitter feud. When Romeo, a Montague, and Juliet, a Capulet, fall in love they are swept up in a series of violent events and cruel...

In the rural hamlet of Lark Rise and the market town of Candleford, life is marked by the pattern of the seasons and the customs of the countryside.Seen through the eyes of a young girl, Laura...