Three full-cast BBC Radio productions of Shakespeare's most famous Roman playsFeaturing all-star casts and introduced by Sir Richard Eyre, these three iconic productions of Shakespeare's dynamic Roman histories are full of political intrigue, passion and tragedy.Julius CaesarThis updated version of Shakespeare's classic play is set in Italy in 1925. Julius Caesar, a new Roman dictator, has swept to power, and his way is clea...

In this BBC full-cast production of Romeo And Juliet, the two star-crossed lovers fight for each other until their dying breath. Can their two feuding families reconcile?With the intimacy of radio, the full beauty and meaning of some of the most lyrical lines ever written can be truly heard: tenderness and passion, betrayal and bigotry are brilliantly evoked as the tale comes to its tragic conclusion.Douglas Henshall stars as Romeo, with So...

In this BBC full-cast production of Coriolanus, allies and enemies become blurred just as Rome is in sight...Coriolanus tells of a proud Roman general who captures the town Corioli but subsequently falls from favour with the Roman people. He allies himself with the Volscians and leads an attack on Rome, but allegiances are won and lost before the final tragic end.Starring Samuel West as Coriolanus and Susannah York...

“How can men best live together?” Twenty-three centuries after its compilation, Politics still has much to contribute to this central question of political science. Aristotle’s thorough and carefully argued analysis covers a huge range of political issues in the effort to establish which types of constitution are best, both ideally and in particular circumstances, and how they may be maintained.Like his predecessor, Plato, Aristotle believed that the ideal constitution sho...

Macbeth, Shakespeare’s last great tragedy, has remained one of the most popular plays since it’s first performance in 1606 probably in front of King James. This exciting new audiobook production is directed with fresh imagination by Fiona Shaw who breaks the conventional strait jacket that has hampered the development of Shakespeare on audio. We are as much in the twenty-first century as in medieval Scotland the tensions, the politics, the struggle for power and dark ambition is part of ou...

“Civil Disobedience” (also known as “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience” and “Resistance to Civil Government”) is an essay published in 1849 by American writer and philosopher Henry David Thoreau. In this essay, Thoreau puts forward the argument each of us has an obligation to resist obedience to a government that acts unjustly lest we become agents of those same injustices. Using slavery and the Mexican-American war in his examples, Thoreau combines philosophical argument with sharing his ...

This book is the basis for Whit Stillman's feature film Love and Friendship starring Kate Beckinsale andChloe Sevigny

Born out of the political turmoil of the English Civil War, Leviathan stands out as one of the most influential political and philosophical texts of the 17th century. It argues for the restoration of the monarchy, in light of the Republic, and calls for a commonwealth ruled by an authoritative, autocratic figure with absolute sovereignty. This would put an end to all controversy, war and fear, and establish peace via social contract. Over the course of the book Hobbes targets Christianity ...

Two couples—Benedick and Beatrice, and Hero and Claudio—must overcome deception, gossip, and, occasionally, their own misplaced pride if their love is to persevere. Aided by military commander Don Pedro and impeded by his brother Don John, the friends go to great lengths in the pursuit of marriage.

Shakespeare’s most famous play is one of the greatest stories in the literature of the world.Distressed by his father’s death and his mother’s over-hasty remarriage, Hamlet, prince of Denmark is faced by a specter from beyond the grave bearing a grim message of murder and revenge. The young prince is driven to the edge of madness by his struggle to understand the situation he finds himself in and to do his duty. Many others, including Hamlet’s beloved, the innocent...

""Our revels now are ended... this rough magic I here abjure...""In Shakespeare hinting at the end of his own magnificent career in these and others lines spoken by the great magician, Prospero? The Tempest was the last of Shakespeare's comedies, completed just before he retired to his native Stratford-upon-Avon; perhaps this delightful comedy was intended to signal the playwright's farewell to his beloved theater. The Tempest reflects Shakespeare...

Lady Susan was the first of Jane Austen’s novels to be completed. An epistolary novel in eighteenth-century style, it tells the story of the recently widowed Lady Susan Vernon, intelligent but highly manipulative, who is intent on gaining financially secure relationships for both herself and her wayward but shy teenage daughter Frederica. Less known than Austen’s six great later novels, it demonstrates the wit and sharp observations of Jane Austen and is shown at its best in audiobook form...