Podcasts about eighteenth century literature

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the renowned and versatile Irish writer Oliver Goldsmith (1728 - 1774). There is a memorial to him in Westminster Abbey's Poet's Corner written by Dr Johnson, celebrating Goldsmith's life as a poet, natural philosopher and historian. To this could be added ‘playwright' and ‘novelist' and ‘science writer' and ‘pamphleteer' and much besides, as Goldsmith explored so many different outlets for his talents. While he began on Grub Street in London, the centre for jobbing writers scrambling for paid work, he became a great populariser and compiler of new ideas and knowledge and achieved notable successes with poems such as The Deserted Village, his play She Stoops to Conquer and his short novel The Vicar of Wakefield. WithDavid O'Shaughnessy Professor of Eighteenth-Century Studies at the University of GalwayJudith Hawley Professor of Eighteenth-Century Literature at Royal Holloway, University of LondonAnd Michael Griffin Professor of English at the University of LimerickProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Norma Clarke, Brothers of the Quill: Oliver Goldsmith in Grub Street (Harvard University Press, 2016)Leo Damrosch, The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age (Yale University Press, 2019)Oliver Goldsmith (ed. Aileen Douglas and Ian Campbell Ross), The Vicar of Wakefield: A Tale, Supposed to Be Written by Himself (first published 1766; Cambridge University Press, 2024)Oliver Goldsmith (ed. Arthur Friedman), The Vicar of Wakefield (first published 1766; Oxford University Press, 2008)Oliver Goldsmith (ed. Arthur Friedman), The Collected Works of Oliver Goldsmith, 5 vols (Clarendon Press, 1966) Oliver Goldsmith (ed. Robert L. Mack), Oliver Goldsmith: Everyman's Poetry, No. 30 (Phoenix, 1997)Oliver Goldsmith (ed. James Ogden), She Stoops to Conquer (first performed 1773; Methuen Drama, 2003)Oliver Goldsmith (ed. James Watt), The Citizen of the World (first published 1762; Cambridge University Press, 2024)Oliver Goldsmith (ed. Nigel Wood), She Stoops to Conquer and Other Comedies (first performed 1773; Oxford University Press, 2007)Michael Griffin and David O'Shaughnessy (eds.), Oliver Goldsmith in Context (Cambridge University Press, 2024)Michael Griffin and David O'Shaughnessy (eds.), The Letters of Oliver Goldsmith (Cambridge University Press, 2018)Roger Lonsdale (ed.), The Poems of Gray, Collins and Goldsmith (Longmans, 1969)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio production

Smell might be one of the main senses but its had a rocky history – going in and out of fashion, and written off as one of the less refined or civilised of the senses. Seen as tied to class and somehow less evolved, we 21st century smellers are missing out by comparison to the smell buffets available to Ancient Romans. In this episode we talk about the meaning of nose shapes, the expense of washing your body and the euphemistic nature of the nose. And we finish up by looking at some nose-related treatments, including cobwebs, butter and nettles! Subscribe to our newsletter to keep up to date with our latest podcasts, videos and events. Subscribe here: https://www.rcpe.ac.uk/heritage/sign-our-heritage-newsletter Website: www.rcpe.ac.uk/heritage Twitter: twitter.com/RCPEHeritage Credits Researcher and presenter: Laura Burgess has been a volunteer with RCPE Heritage since 2021 after completing her MA in History from UNC Charlotte. Editor and producer: Sarah E Hayward completed her PhD in Museums and Heritage Studies at Kingston University London in 2023. She has been a volunteer with RCPE Heritage since 2021. She has a passion for archival research and she loves to explore creative ways to assemble and share the hidden stories she uncovers. Researcher and presenter: Olivia Howarth is a volunteer with RCPE Heritage, a recently qualified archivist, heritage enthusiast and self-proclaimed lifetime nerd with an interest in medical history. Guest historian clip: Dr Noelle Gallagher is Senior Lecturer in Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture at the University of Manchester.

Smell might be one of the main senses but its had a rocky history – going in and out of fashion, and written off as one of the less refined or civilised of the senses. Seen as tied to class and somehow less evolved, we 21st century smellers are missing out by comparison to the smell buffets available to Ancient Romans. In this episode we talk about the meaning of nose shapes, the expense of washing your body and the euphemistic nature of the nose. And we finish up by looking at some nose-related treatments, including cobwebs, butter and nettles! Subscribe to our newsletter to keep up to date with our latest podcasts, videos and events. Subscribe here: https://www.rcpe.ac.uk/heritage/sign-our-heritage-newsletter Website: www.rcpe.ac.uk/heritage Twitter: twitter.com/RCPEHeritage Credits Researcher and presenter: Laura Burgess has been a volunteer with RCPE Heritage since 2021 after completing her MA in History from UNC Charlotte. Editor and producer: Sarah E Hayward completed her PhD in Museums and Heritage Studies at Kingston University London in 2023. She has been a volunteer with RCPE Heritage since 2021. She has a passion for archival research and she loves to explore creative ways to assemble and share the hidden stories she uncovers. Researcher and presenter: Olivia Howarth is a volunteer with RCPE Heritage, a recently qualified archivist, heritage enthusiast and self-proclaimed lifetime nerd with an interest in medical history. Guest historian clip: Dr Noelle Gallagher is Senior Lecturer in Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture at the University of Manchester.

You will be challenged and learn in this episode. It is a must-listen. Dr. Megan Peiser, Ph.D. challenges me to listen closely and to lean in.  She wants her ancestors to look back and say "Oh Megan, she did some good work." Without question her ancestors will say that and much more about her impact.  Megan is simply brilliant, engaged, inspiring, and driven. She is deeply committed to reclaiming her own indigenous roots as a member of the Choctaw Nation. She inspires her students to stay brave, she dedicates her work to highlighting women and marginalized peoples in literature, and ignites growth through the written word and participation; whether that means reading, gardening, or smashing the patriarchy.  Megan Peiser is a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. She is Assistant Professor of Eighteenth-Century Literature at Oakland University. Her research and teaching interests include women writers, history of the novel, history of the book, periodicals, Indigenous literature and culture, material culture, and digital humanities. She lives in Michigan with her dachshunds, Jasper and Burney.www.meganpeiser.comRESOURCES: What Kind of Ancestor Do You Want to Be ed. John Hausdoerffer, Brooke Parry Hecht, Melissa K. Nelson, and Katherine Kassouf CommingsAn Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz https://birchbarkbooks.com/products/an-indigenous-peoples-history-of-the-united-states?_pos=1&_sid=94cbad9ab&_ss=rAnd a "young peoples" version! https://birchbarkbooks.com/products/an-indigenous-peoples-history-of-the-united-states-for-young-people?_pos=2&_sid=94cbad9ab&_ss=rFire Keeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley -- this one is a wonderful recent Indigenous YA novel, set in Michigan! https://birchbarkbooks.com/products/firekeepers-daughter?_pos=1&_sid=861c2333e&_ss=rThe Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson -- also a novel, WONDERFUL. https://birchbarkbooks.com/products/the-seed-keeper?_pos=1&_sid=5b8469546&_ss=rBraiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer https://birchbarkbooks.com/products/braiding-sweetgrass?_pos=2&_sid=354cd4281&_ss=rTreaty of Detroit, 1807 : https://www.cmich.edu/research/clarke-historical-library/explore-collection/explore-online/native-american-material/native-american-treaty-rights/text-of-michigan-related-treaties#a3Home Page for the Marguerite Hicks Project: https://margueritehickspro.wixsite.com/home

In 1796, the theatre was the place to be. In the growing colony Sydney, people would pack into the theatre to see ex-convicts perform the latest popular plays for them. The NLA's exhibition On Stage has an exquisite treasure from this time: a playbill once belonging to the Lieutenant-Governor of NSW, Philip Gidley King. On our first episode of Off Stage, host Melanie Tait takes you inside the theatre to meet the characters involved the production of Jane Shore, remembered forever through this precious playbill. Links: National Library of Australia On Stage Exhibition The 1796 Playbill The Playbill and its People: Australia's earliest printed document by Gillian Russell The Collected Plays of Jim McNeil Oral history of Jim McNeil   Guests: David Marr, journalist Gillian Russell, Professor of Eighteenth-Century Literature and author of The Playbill and its People   Credits: Melanie Tait - writer, producer and presenter of Off Stage Kim Lester - technical producer and sound engineer of Off Stage

In this podcast from our Late Summer Lectures series, Alex Hobday (University of Cambridge) examines how eighteenth-century culture sought to answer that eternal question: what is happiness, and how can we achieve it? For more information, and an accessible transcript, visit: https://readdurhamenglish.wordpress.com/?p=30441

Part of the Humanities Cultural Programme, one of the founding stones for the future Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities. If we were able to step inside the parlours and drawing rooms of the eighteenth century we’d find homes busy with home-made culture - book groups and tea table parties; amateur dramatics; groups of women reading and weeping their way through popular sentimental fiction; children stumbling through poems before their maiden aunts, and men at punch parties singing songs about dogs. We used to read aloud, and we used to do it together, at home. This event, presented by Professor Abigail Williams, gives us a glimpse of that older world of domestic culture and performance, with some thoughts on its revival in the current climate. In a short 'masterclass' with Giles Lewin, Abby will also give some tips on what eighteenth-century reading aloud might have looked and sounded like. Biographies: Abigail Williams is Professor of Eighteenth-Century Literature at St Peter's College, University of Oxford. Her monograph on reading aloud, The Social Life of Books was published by Yale in 2017. She is currently working on a book on the history of misreading. Giles Lewin is a performer and composer, primarily a violinist, specialising in medieval music and the traditional music of Europe and the Middle East.He has written and performed music for theatre and radio, and played on many film and television scores. He is a founder member of the folk band Bellowhead, and the early music groups The Dufay Collective, Alva, and The Carnival Band.

Part of the Humanities Cultural Programme, one of the founding stones for the future Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities. If we were able to step inside the parlours and drawing rooms of the eighteenth century we’d find homes busy with home-made culture - book groups and tea table parties; amateur dramatics; groups of women reading and weeping their way through popular sentimental fiction; children stumbling through poems before their maiden aunts, and men at punch parties singing songs about dogs. We used to read aloud, and we used to do it together, at home. This event, presented by Professor Abigail Williams, gives us a glimpse of that older world of domestic culture and performance, with some thoughts on its revival in the current climate. In a short 'masterclass' with Giles Lewin, Abby will also give some tips on what eighteenth-century reading aloud might have looked and sounded like. Biographies: Abigail Williams is Professor of Eighteenth-Century Literature at St Peter's College, University of Oxford. Her monograph on reading aloud, The Social Life of Books was published by Yale in 2017. She is currently working on a book on the history of misreading. Giles Lewin is a performer and composer, primarily a violinist, specialising in medieval music and the traditional music of Europe and the Middle East.He has written and performed music for theatre and radio, and played on many film and television scores. He is a founder member of the folk band Bellowhead, and the early music groups The Dufay Collective, Alva, and The Carnival Band.

As they explored and struggled to establish settlements in what they called ‘new found lands', the encounter with the peoples of those lands deeply affected how the British saw themselves. From the onset of colonisation, exotic visitors appeared in London. We recognise their names: Pocahontas, Manteo, Squanto. If you look carefully, they are a constant presence: in the decorative cartouches of 17th and 18th century maps; in the illustrated title pages of texts promoting colonisation; and present, though heavily filtered through the assumptions of British culture, in many other texts – poems, plays, treatises on political theory and philosophy, and in novels – a form that was new, which confronted a world that was ancient. The intensity of this cultural encounter, which is all too familiar to those who work on the history of colonial and federal America, has been overlooked in some circles of British studies. The multi-volume Oxford History of the British Empire, for example, devoted just 2 of 47 essays to the topic of Native Americans, while treatments of British imperial culture do not place enough emphasis on how diplomatic, military, commercial relationships with the Algonquian, Cherokee and Haudenosaunee peoples shaped broader views of the nature and purposes of the imperial project. Robbie Richardson is Lecturer in Eighteenth-Century Literature at the University of Kent. In The Savage and Modern Self: North American Indians in Eighteenth-Century British Literature and Culture (University of Toronto Press, 2018), he examines the cultural presence of Indians in the novels, poetry, plays and material culture of the eighteenth-century. This presence was used as a kind of reflection to grapple with the emergence of consumer culture, the meaning of colonialism, ‘Britishness' and – one of the preoccupations of eighteenth-century social theorists – the nature of the ‘modern self'. Charles Prior is Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Hull. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As they explored and struggled to establish settlements in what they called ‘new found lands’, the encounter with the peoples of those lands deeply affected how the British saw themselves. From the onset of colonisation, exotic visitors appeared in London. We recognise their names: Pocahontas, Manteo, Squanto. If you look carefully, they are a constant presence: in the decorative cartouches of 17th and 18th century maps; in the illustrated title pages of texts promoting colonisation; and present, though heavily filtered through the assumptions of British culture, in many other texts – poems, plays, treatises on political theory and philosophy, and in novels – a form that was new, which confronted a world that was ancient. The intensity of this cultural encounter, which is all too familiar to those who work on the history of colonial and federal America, has been overlooked in some circles of British studies. The multi-volume Oxford History of the British Empire, for example, devoted just 2 of 47 essays to the topic of Native Americans, while treatments of British imperial culture do not place enough emphasis on how diplomatic, military, commercial relationships with the Algonquian, Cherokee and Haudenosaunee peoples shaped broader views of the nature and purposes of the imperial project. Robbie Richardson is Lecturer in Eighteenth-Century Literature at the University of Kent. In The Savage and Modern Self: North American Indians in Eighteenth-Century British Literature and Culture (University of Toronto Press, 2018), he examines the cultural presence of Indians in the novels, poetry, plays and material culture of the eighteenth-century. This presence was used as a kind of reflection to grapple with the emergence of consumer culture, the meaning of colonialism, ‘Britishness’ and – one of the preoccupations of eighteenth-century social theorists – the nature of the ‘modern self’. Charles Prior is Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Hull. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As they explored and struggled to establish settlements in what they called ‘new found lands’, the encounter with the peoples of those lands deeply affected how the British saw themselves. From the onset of colonisation, exotic visitors appeared in London. We recognise their names: Pocahontas, Manteo, Squanto. If you look carefully, they are a constant presence: in the decorative cartouches of 17th and 18th century maps; in the illustrated title pages of texts promoting colonisation; and present, though heavily filtered through the assumptions of British culture, in many other texts – poems, plays, treatises on political theory and philosophy, and in novels – a form that was new, which confronted a world that was ancient. The intensity of this cultural encounter, which is all too familiar to those who work on the history of colonial and federal America, has been overlooked in some circles of British studies. The multi-volume Oxford History of the British Empire, for example, devoted just 2 of 47 essays to the topic of Native Americans, while treatments of British imperial culture do not place enough emphasis on how diplomatic, military, commercial relationships with the Algonquian, Cherokee and Haudenosaunee peoples shaped broader views of the nature and purposes of the imperial project. Robbie Richardson is Lecturer in Eighteenth-Century Literature at the University of Kent. In The Savage and Modern Self: North American Indians in Eighteenth-Century British Literature and Culture (University of Toronto Press, 2018), he examines the cultural presence of Indians in the novels, poetry, plays and material culture of the eighteenth-century. This presence was used as a kind of reflection to grapple with the emergence of consumer culture, the meaning of colonialism, ‘Britishness’ and – one of the preoccupations of eighteenth-century social theorists – the nature of the ‘modern self’. Charles Prior is Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Hull. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As they explored and struggled to establish settlements in what they called ‘new found lands’, the encounter with the peoples of those lands deeply affected how the British saw themselves. From the onset of colonisation, exotic visitors appeared in London. We recognise their names: Pocahontas, Manteo, Squanto. If you look carefully, they are a constant presence: in the decorative cartouches of 17th and 18th century maps; in the illustrated title pages of texts promoting colonisation; and present, though heavily filtered through the assumptions of British culture, in many other texts – poems, plays, treatises on political theory and philosophy, and in novels – a form that was new, which confronted a world that was ancient. The intensity of this cultural encounter, which is all too familiar to those who work on the history of colonial and federal America, has been overlooked in some circles of British studies. The multi-volume Oxford History of the British Empire, for example, devoted just 2 of 47 essays to the topic of Native Americans, while treatments of British imperial culture do not place enough emphasis on how diplomatic, military, commercial relationships with the Algonquian, Cherokee and Haudenosaunee peoples shaped broader views of the nature and purposes of the imperial project. Robbie Richardson is Lecturer in Eighteenth-Century Literature at the University of Kent. In The Savage and Modern Self: North American Indians in Eighteenth-Century British Literature and Culture (University of Toronto Press, 2018), he examines the cultural presence of Indians in the novels, poetry, plays and material culture of the eighteenth-century. This presence was used as a kind of reflection to grapple with the emergence of consumer culture, the meaning of colonialism, ‘Britishness’ and – one of the preoccupations of eighteenth-century social theorists – the nature of the ‘modern self’. Charles Prior is Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Hull. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As they explored and struggled to establish settlements in what they called ‘new found lands’, the encounter with the peoples of those lands deeply affected how the British saw themselves. From the onset of colonisation, exotic visitors appeared in London. We recognise their names: Pocahontas, Manteo, Squanto. If you look carefully, they are a constant presence: in the decorative cartouches of 17th and 18th century maps; in the illustrated title pages of texts promoting colonisation; and present, though heavily filtered through the assumptions of British culture, in many other texts – poems, plays, treatises on political theory and philosophy, and in novels – a form that was new, which confronted a world that was ancient. The intensity of this cultural encounter, which is all too familiar to those who work on the history of colonial and federal America, has been overlooked in some circles of British studies. The multi-volume Oxford History of the British Empire, for example, devoted just 2 of 47 essays to the topic of Native Americans, while treatments of British imperial culture do not place enough emphasis on how diplomatic, military, commercial relationships with the Algonquian, Cherokee and Haudenosaunee peoples shaped broader views of the nature and purposes of the imperial project. Robbie Richardson is Lecturer in Eighteenth-Century Literature at the University of Kent. In The Savage and Modern Self: North American Indians in Eighteenth-Century British Literature and Culture (University of Toronto Press, 2018), he examines the cultural presence of Indians in the novels, poetry, plays and material culture of the eighteenth-century. This presence was used as a kind of reflection to grapple with the emergence of consumer culture, the meaning of colonialism, ‘Britishness’ and – one of the preoccupations of eighteenth-century social theorists – the nature of the ‘modern self’. Charles Prior is Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Hull. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As they explored and struggled to establish settlements in what they called ‘new found lands’, the encounter with the peoples of those lands deeply affected how the British saw themselves. From the onset of colonisation, exotic visitors appeared in London. We recognise their names: Pocahontas, Manteo, Squanto. If you look carefully, they are a constant presence: in the decorative cartouches of 17th and 18th century maps; in the illustrated title pages of texts promoting colonisation; and present, though heavily filtered through the assumptions of British culture, in many other texts – poems, plays, treatises on political theory and philosophy, and in novels – a form that was new, which confronted a world that was ancient. The intensity of this cultural encounter, which is all too familiar to those who work on the history of colonial and federal America, has been overlooked in some circles of British studies. The multi-volume Oxford History of the British Empire, for example, devoted just 2 of 47 essays to the topic of Native Americans, while treatments of British imperial culture do not place enough emphasis on how diplomatic, military, commercial relationships with the Algonquian, Cherokee and Haudenosaunee peoples shaped broader views of the nature and purposes of the imperial project. Robbie Richardson is Lecturer in Eighteenth-Century Literature at the University of Kent. In The Savage and Modern Self: North American Indians in Eighteenth-Century British Literature and Culture (University of Toronto Press, 2018), he examines the cultural presence of Indians in the novels, poetry, plays and material culture of the eighteenth-century. This presence was used as a kind of reflection to grapple with the emergence of consumer culture, the meaning of colonialism, ‘Britishness’ and – one of the preoccupations of eighteenth-century social theorists – the nature of the ‘modern self’. Charles Prior is Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Hull. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As they explored and struggled to establish settlements in what they called ‘new found lands’, the encounter with the peoples of those lands deeply affected how the British saw themselves. From the onset of colonisation, exotic visitors appeared in London. We recognise their names: Pocahontas, Manteo, Squanto. If you look carefully, they are a constant presence: in the decorative cartouches of 17th and 18th century maps; in the illustrated title pages of texts promoting colonisation; and present, though heavily filtered through the assumptions of British culture, in many other texts – poems, plays, treatises on political theory and philosophy, and in novels – a form that was new, which confronted a world that was ancient. The intensity of this cultural encounter, which is all too familiar to those who work on the history of colonial and federal America, has been overlooked in some circles of British studies. The multi-volume Oxford History of the British Empire, for example, devoted just 2 of 47 essays to the topic of Native Americans, while treatments of British imperial culture do not place enough emphasis on how diplomatic, military, commercial relationships with the Algonquian, Cherokee and Haudenosaunee peoples shaped broader views of the nature and purposes of the imperial project. Robbie Richardson is Lecturer in Eighteenth-Century Literature at the University of Kent. In The Savage and Modern Self: North American Indians in Eighteenth-Century British Literature and Culture (University of Toronto Press, 2018), he examines the cultural presence of Indians in the novels, poetry, plays and material culture of the eighteenth-century. This presence was used as a kind of reflection to grapple with the emergence of consumer culture, the meaning of colonialism, ‘Britishness’ and – one of the preoccupations of eighteenth-century social theorists – the nature of the ‘modern self’. Charles Prior is Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Hull. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of the 18th-century novelist, playwright and diarist Fanny Burney, also known as Madame D'Arblay and Frances Burney. Her first novel, Evelina, was published anonymously and caused a sensation, attracting the admiration of many eminent contemporaries. In an era when very few women published their work she achieved extraordinary success, and her admirers included Dr Johnson and Edmund Burke; later Virginia Woolf called her 'the mother of English fiction'. With Nicole Pohl Reader in English Literature at Oxford Brookes University Judith Hawley Professor of Eighteenth-Century Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London and John Mullan Professor of English at University College London. Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of the 18th-century novelist, playwright and diarist Fanny Burney, also known as Madame D'Arblay and Frances Burney. Her first novel, Evelina, was published anonymously and caused a sensation, attracting the admiration of many eminent contemporaries. In an era when very few women published their work she achieved extraordinary success, and her admirers included Dr Johnson and Edmund Burke; later Virginia Woolf called her 'the mother of English fiction'. With Nicole Pohl Reader in English Literature at Oxford Brookes University Judith Hawley Professor of Eighteenth-Century Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London and John Mullan Professor of English at University College London. Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Laurence Sterne's novel Tristram Shandy. Sterne's comic masterpiece is an extravagantly inventive work which was hugely popular when first published in 1759. Its often bawdy humour, and numerous digressions, are combined with bold literary experiment, such as a page printed entirely black to mark the death of one of the novel's characters. Dr Johnson wrote that "Nothing odd will do long. Tristram Shandy did not last" - but two hundred and fifty years after the book's publication, Tristram Shandy remains one of the most influential and widely admired books of the eighteenth century. With: Judith Hawley Professor of Eighteenth-Century Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London John Mullan Professor of English at University College London Mary Newbould Bowman Supervisor in English at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge. Producer: Thomas Morris.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Laurence Sterne's novel Tristram Shandy. Sterne's comic masterpiece is an extravagantly inventive work which was hugely popular when first published in 1759. Its often bawdy humour, and numerous digressions, are combined with bold literary experiment, such as a page printed entirely black to mark the death of one of the novel's characters. Dr Johnson wrote that "Nothing odd will do long. Tristram Shandy did not last" - but two hundred and fifty years after the book's publication, Tristram Shandy remains one of the most influential and widely admired books of the eighteenth century. With: Judith Hawley Professor of Eighteenth-Century Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London John Mullan Professor of English at University College London Mary Newbould Bowman Supervisor in English at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge. Producer: Thomas Morris.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Lyrical Ballads, the collection of poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge first published in 1798. The work was conceived as an attempt to cast off the stultifying conventions of formal 18th-century poetry. Wordsworth wrote that the poems it contains should be "considered as experiments. They were written chiefly with a view to ascertain how far the language of conversation in the middle and lower classes of society is adapted to the purpose of poetic pleasure."Lyrical Ballads contains some of the best-known work by Coleridge and Wordsworth, including The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Tintern Abbey - and is today seen as a point of radical departure for poetry in English.With:Judith HawleyProfessor of Eighteenth-Century Literature at Royal Holloway, University of LondonJonathan BateProvost of Worcester College, OxfordPeter SwaabReader in English Literature at University College London.Producer: Thomas Morris.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe. Published in 1719, it was an immediate success and is considered the classic adventure story. There are several incidents that may have inspired the tale, although none of them exactly mirrors Defoe's thrilling yet didactic narrative. The plot is now universally known - the sailor stranded on a desert island who learns to tame the environment and the native population. The character of Friday, Crusoe's trusty companion and servant, has become almost as famous as Crusoe himself and their master-servant relationship forms one of the principal themes in the novel. Robinson Crusoe has been interpreted in myriad ways, from colonial fable to religious instruction manual to capitalist tract; although arguably above all of these, it is perhaps best known today as a children's story. With:Karen O'BrienPro-Vice Chancellor for Education at the University of Birmingham Judith HawleyProfessor of Eighteenth-Century Literature at Royal Holloway, University of LondonBob OwensEmeritus Professor of English Literature at the Open UniversityProducer: Natalia Fernandez.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe. Published in 1719, it was an immediate success and is considered the classic adventure story. There are several incidents that may have inspired the tale, although none of them exactly mirrors Defoe's thrilling yet didactic narrative. The plot is now universally known - the sailor stranded on a desert island who learns to tame the environment and the native population. The character of Friday, Crusoe's trusty companion and servant, has become almost as famous as Crusoe himself and their master-servant relationship forms one of the principal themes in the novel. Robinson Crusoe has been interpreted in myriad ways, from colonial fable to religious instruction manual to capitalist tract; although arguably above all of these, it is perhaps best known today as a children's story. With:Karen O'BrienPro-Vice Chancellor for Education at the University of Birmingham Judith HawleyProfessor of Eighteenth-Century Literature at Royal Holloway, University of LondonBob OwensEmeritus Professor of English Literature at the Open UniversityProducer: Natalia Fernandez.