Season 1
6 episodes · Sep 2, 2014
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- S1E1
Great Expectations
Sep 2, 201430mGreat Expectations has often been considered one of Charles Dickens's greatest works. EastEnders screenwriter Tony Jordan explores Dickens's success as a serial writer and how Dickens could never keep his own personal problems out of his novels.
- S1E2
Shakespeare's First Folio
Sep 9, 201430mActor Simon Russell Beale has dedicated most of his professional life to the work of one man: The Bard, William Shakespeare. In Shakespeare's time, original manuscripts were thrown away, so without The First Folio, many of Shakespeare's works would have been lost forever.
- S1E3
Mrs Dalloway
Sep 16, 201430mEnglish writer Virginia Woolf is one of the most fascinating novelists of the twentieth century. Presenter Alexandra Harris explores Woolf's 1925 novel Mrs. Dalloway and how the writing reflected the unstable society following the World War One.
- S1E4
The Mabinogion
Sep 23, 201430mThe Mabinogion is a collection of 11 ancient folk tales that is considered Wales' most important contribution to European literature. Cerys Matthews explores the fascinating history of the collection and how it influenced fantasy such as J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.
- S1E5
Jane Eyre
Sep 30, 201430mNovelist Bidisha Mamata first read Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre when she was a teenager and was captivated by Jane's liberating journey into adulthood. But upon revisiting the book, Bidisha challenges the romanticism of Brontë's classic novel.
S1E6Frankenstein
Nov 2, 201430mMary Shelley's Frankenstein has become synonymous monsters and the dangers of science without morals. Author and scientist Professor Alice Roberts returns to the original text to explore the myths of the novel and what Shelley originally intended Frankenstein to be about.