Showing results by narrator "Fiona Shaw" in All Categories

Alice's adventures, funny, inventive, and disturbing, have fascinated and delighted children and adults alike since their publication. The fantasy worlds in which she finds herself introduce her to characters as varied and well-known as the White Rabbit, the Mad Hatter, the Queen of Hearts, and the Cheshire Cat.

Born at Steventon in 1775, the daughter of a Hampshire clergyman, Jane Austen was the youngest of seven children. She lived a quiet life, moving to Bath, Southampton, Chawton and eventually to Winchester where she died unmarried in 1817 at the age of 42. It is to her elder sister Cassandra that most of her surviving letters are written, and through them, we discover the intimate world of the English gentry.

In A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft tackles the wasted potential she sees in women, refusing to see them as inferior to men; she decries their limitations and suggests that they are worthy of an equal standard of education, and that they should be taught to develop their own reason, not simply how to gain a man. Written in 1792, at the height of the French Revolution, A Vindication is an eloquent and persuasive response to the prevailing attitudes of the time.

One of the BBC's most acclaimed programmes, Great Lives has been a regular Radio 4 fixture for 20 years, presented by Joan Bakewell, Humphrey Carpenter, Francine Stock and Matthew Parris. Every week, a famous name is invited into the studio to nominate a figure from the past who has inspired them, and discuss their subject with the presenter and a guest expert.

Alice is back in her room, stroking her cats - but not for long. Slipping through the Looking-Glass, she meets another wild collection of fantasy characters including the Red and White Kings and Queens, Tweedledum and Tweedledee and is entertained by the poems "Jabberwocky" and "The Walrus and the Carpenter."

In a church in Battersea, Mary-Margaret O'Reilly sees blood on her hands and believes she has witnessed a miracle. The consequences are both profound and devastating - not just for her but for others, too: Father Diamond, the parish priest, struggling with his own faith. Stella, adrift in her marriage and aching for her ten-year old son, away at boarding school. Alice, counting the days until her soldier son comes home. And Mary-Margaret's mother, imprisoned in a tower block with nothing but her thoughts for company.

An intimate three-volume collection of moving letters from the private writings of three of the most popular writers of the 19th century, presented in a dramatised setting.