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Narrative Poems: 'Hero and Leander' by Christopher Marlowe
Season 19 Episode 1
'Hero and Leander' was published in 1598, and anyone who came across it in a stationer’s shop in Elizabethan London would have known that its author …
4 months, 1 week ago
Nature in Crisis: ‘Silent Spring’ by Rachel Carson
Season 18 Episode 1
After following up a lead from a birdwatcher, Rachel Carson drew a web of connections that led to one of the most influential books of the 20th centu…
4 months, 2 weeks ago
Who's afraid of realism? 'Madame Bovary' by Gustave Flaubert (part one)
Season 17 Episode 1
Gustave Flaubert recalled in a letter that the critic Sainte-Beuve compared his style to a surgeon’s scalpel, an image taken from 'Madame Bovary'. Th…
4 months, 3 weeks ago
The Man Behind the Curtain: ‘Don Quixote’ by Miguel de Cervantes
Season 16 Episode 1
In The Man Behind the Curtain, a bonus Close Readings series for 2026, Tom McCarthy and Thomas Jones examine great novels in terms of the systems and…
4 months, 3 weeks ago
Novel Approaches: ‘New Grub Street’ by George Gissing
George Gissing’s novels, Orwell once said, could be described in three words: ‘not enough money’. Writing is a matter of survival for the cast of ‘Ne…
4 months, 4 weeks ago
Novel Approaches: ‘New Grub Street’ by George Gissing
Season 15 Episode 15
George Gissing’s novels, Orwell once said, could be described in three words: ‘not enough money’. Writing is a matter of survival for the cast of ‘Ne…
4 months, 4 weeks ago
Novel Approaches: 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens
Did Dickens ruin Christmas? He was certainly a pioneer in exploiting its commercial potential. A Christmas Carol sold 6,000 copies in five days when …
5 months ago
Novel Approaches: ‘A Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens
Season 15 Episode 14
Did Dickens ruin Christmas? He was certainly a pioneer in exploiting its commercial potential. A Christmas Carol sold 6,000 copies in five days when …
5 months ago
Love and Death: Samuel Johnson, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Mick Imlah
Season 14 Episode 14
Samuel Johnson’s doctor, Robert Levet, had piecemeal medical knowledge at best, was described as an ‘an obscure practiser in physick’ by James Boswel…
5 months ago
Fiction and the Fantastic: A Taxonomy
Season 13 Episode 14
Though the last twelve episodes have taken Marina Warner and her interlocutors through many worlds and texts, no series could ever encompass the full…
5 months, 1 week ago