Dwarves, elves, goblins, trolls, dragons and wizards - these are the ingredients of J.R.R. Tolkien's wonderful fantasy, the prelude to The Lord of The Rings, now the subject of a major feature film series. The hero of the tale is Bilbo Baggins, a home-loving unambitious hobbit who is suddenly thrust into what turns out to be the biggest adventure of his life. Guided by Gandalf the wizard, Bilbo and a company of dwarves set out to destroy Smaug the Magnificent, a ferocious dragon w...

Four Neo Classic tragedies from the renowned French dramatist Jean RacineJean-Baptiste Racine was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France, along with Molière and Corneille. Racine is also an important literary figure in the Western tradition and world literature. Racine was primarily a tragedian. Dive into these classic Greek stories told with a French neoclassic flair with star studded casts including, Timothy West, Pr...

BBC radio productions of H. G. Wells' finest fiction - plus hear H .G. Wells in his own words in a selection of original radio broadcasts from the 1930s and 40sH. G. Wells is one of the founding fathers of science fiction, renowned for his futuristic tales in which he predicted space travel, lasers, the atomic bomb and wireless communication. But in addition to his 'scientific romances', he also wrote numerous ghost stories, domestic comedies and Utopian novels esp...

Eight thrilling tales from the writer of Brothers in Law, featuring courtroom cases, legal wranglings, conspiracy and blackmailBarrister and county court judge, Henry Cecil wrote numerous comic stories set in the legal world, most famously Brothers in Law. Collected here are eight vintage dramas based on his works, beginning with an adaptation of his debut novel, The Painswick Line, a tale of a judge and his somewhat unco...

From Rose Tremain comes the Booker Prize short-listed novel that "restored the historical novel to its rightful place of honor" (New York Times).Robert Merivel, son of a glove maker and an aspiring physician, finds his fortunes transformed when he is given a position at the court of King Charles II. Merivel slips easily into a life of luxury and idleness, enthusiastically enjoying the women and wine of the vibrant Restoration age. But when he's called on to serve the king ...

'They came in cylinders as dreaded falling stars; they were the ultimate killing machines...' When a Martian spacecraft crash-lands near Woking, mankind is terrorised by aliens in tall, armoured capsules that stalk the countryside on three legs. The frightening machines wreak havoc on London and the Southern Counties with their heat-rays, and survivors are driven underground. Yet it all began in the calm of an observatory... While scanning the heavens, scientist John Nicholson sees a showe...