Brought to you by Penguin.Christopher Wood, a beautiful young Englishman, decided to be the greatest painter the world had seen. He went to Paris in 1921. By day he studied, by night he attended the parties of the beau monde. He knew Picasso, worked for Diaghilev and was a friend of Cocteau. In the last months of his 29-year life, he fought a ravening opium addiction to succeed in claiming a place in history of English painting.Richard Hilary, confident, ha...

Brought to you by Penguin.Russia, 1915: At the age of 16, Georgy Jachmenev steps in front of an assassin's bullet intended for the heart of a senior member of the Russian Imperial Family. He is instantly proclaimed a hero. Before the week is out, his life as the son of a peasant farmer is changed forever when he is escorted to St Petersburg to take up his new position - as bodyguard to Alexei Romanov, the only son of Tsar Nicholas II.Sixty five years later,...

A BBC Radio six-part dramatisation of Marcel Proust’s groundbreaking series of novels, tracing the extraordinary story of the author’s own life. Starring James Wilby and Jonathan Firth, and with a distinguished cast including Harriet Walter, Imogen Stubbs and Corin Redgrave, this rich, multi-layered adaptation brings out all the variety and subtlety of Proust’s magnificent masterpiece. Featuring a fictional version of himself - ‘Marcel’ - and a host of friends, acquaintances and lovers, 'I...

Saturday, February 15, 2003. Henry Perowne is a contented man - a successful neurosurgeon, the devoted husband of Rosalind and proud father of two grown-up children. Unusually, he wakes before dawn, drawn to the window of his bedroom and filled with a growing unease. What troubles him as he looks out at the night sky is the state of the world - the impending war against Iraq, a gathering pessimism since 9/11, and a fear that his city and his happy family life are under threat.Later...

Brought to you by Penguin.This is the story of Francis Andrews, a young man whose betrayal of his fellow smugglers has left a man dead. Fearing vengeance, he flees and takes refuge in the house of a young, isolated woman who persuades him to give evidence against his accomplices in court. But neither she nor Andrews is aware that to both criminals and authority, treachery is as great a crime as smuggling.© Graham Greene 1929 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Brought to you by Penguin.Drover, a Communist bus driver, is in prison, sentenced to death for killing a policeman during a riot at Hyde Park Corner. A battle for a reprieve with many participants ensues: the Assistant Commissioner, high-principled and over-worked; Conrad, a paranoid clerk; Mr Surrogate, a rich Fabian; Condor, a pathetic journalist feeding on fantasies; pretty, promiscuous Kay - all have a part to play in his fate.© Graham Greene 1934 (P) P...

A beautifully controlled and powerful story of love and conscience, will and desire which begins when a mysterious young girl arrives to take up a post at the seedy H-tel du Lion d'Or in a small French town in the mid-1930s. The Girl at the Lion d'Or is the first book in Sebastian Faulks' French trilogy of novel. Birdsong and Charlotte Gray are also available from Random House Audio Books, read by Samuel West.

A selection of the renowned French philosophers Sartre’s plays.This collection features several dramatisations of Jean-Paul Sartre's works, including The Roads to Freedom, No Way Out (or "Huis Clos"), Assassins and Nekrassov. These productions showcase Sartre's exploration of existentialism, freedom, and political themes. Notable cast members include David Haig, James Fle...

BBC Radio 4 adaptations of George Meredith’s classic tragicomic novel and his picaresque romantic comedyNovelist and poet George Meredith is widely regarded as the last great Victorian author. He influenced writers including Thomas Hardy, Robert Louis Stevenson and Henry James, and was nominated for the Nobel Prize seven times. This BBC collection features dramatisations of his most famous novel, The Egoist, and his witty bildungsroman The Adv...

This swashbuckling romance transports a droll young English gentleman from his comfortable life in London to a fast-moving adventure in a mythical country steeped in political intrigue. Rudolf Rassendyll, pondering his life’s purpose, sets out on a journey to the tiny European kingdom of Ruritania, where he discovers that he bears a marked physical resemblance to the king. Perils and adventures ensue when he decides to impersonate the king in order to defeat a plot to dethrone him, and fal...

This story of William Crimsworth, who goes to Brussels to seek his fortune and falls in love with Frances, a schoolteacher and lace-maker while he is himself pursued by Madamoiselle Reuter, is a subtle portrayal of a self-made man and his relationships in a society that worships property and propriety.

Seven Pillars of Wisdom is an account written by T.E. Lawrence, or Lawrence of Arabia as he became known, regarding the Arab revolt against the Turks and his own part in those events, transcribed from extensive notes which he kept at the time. Like Wilfred Owen and Robert Graves, Lawrence is a stunning example of a military man as a literary genius. Insightful and candid, raw and emotive, Seven Pillars of Wisdom is an epic and important accomplishment, perfectly suited to...