Over the years the BBC has broadcast readings of many of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novels, novellas and short stories. This collection includes some of his most famous works alongside various lesser-known tales, including three ‘lost stories’ (first published in 2017 and with an introduction written by editor Anne Margaret Daniel).

Contents:
The Great Gatsby – read by Sam Robards
The Diamond as Big as the Ritz – read by Garrick Hagon
Tender is the Night – read by Kenneth Haigh
Babylon Revisited – read by Stuart Milligan
The Sensible Thing – read by Stuart Milligan
Bernice Bobs Her Hair – read by Laurel Lefkow
Financing Finnegan – read by John Sharian
The Smilers – read by John Sharian
An Alcoholic Case – read by John Sharian
Three Hours Between Planes – read by John Sharian
Pat Hobby’s Secret – read by Ed Bishop
Pat Hobby: Teamed with Genius – read by Ed Bishop
Pat Hobby and Orson Welles – read by Ed Bishop
Pat Hobby: The Homes of the Stars – read by Ed Bishop
Thank You for the Light – read by Karen Bartke, with an introduction read by Laurel Lefkow
The Couple – read by Finn den Hertog
Salute to Lucy and Elsie – read by Stuart Milligan

Also included are The Great Gatsby Letters, in which F. Scott Fitzgerald tells his editor about his hopes and fears for his new novel, and The Beautiful and the Damned: A Portrait of F. Scott Fitzgerald, featuring Ed Bishop and Sarah Keller as Fitzgerald and Zelda.

Please note: some of the language in this recording reflects the era in which it was first broadcast.

Best known for his science fiction, H.G. Wells was also a master of the ghost story, producing numerous tales of the gothic, the eldritch and the uncanny. These six stories, ranging from the humorous to the horrifying, epitomise the very best of Wells’ occult fiction.

The Moth
Two entomologists are embroiled in a scientific feud. When one dies, the other believes he has discovered a rare new species…

The Story of the Late Mr Elvesham
A medical student gets more than he bargained for when he accepts an old man’s bequest.

The Temptation of Harringay
Struggling with his latest portrait, an artist is shocked to find it taking on a distinctly diabolical air.

The Inexperienced Ghost
A man encounters a timid spirit haunting his club, and helps him out – with dreadful consequences.

The Stolen Body
A psychical researcher attempts an out-of-body experience, with terrifying results.

The Door in the Wall
Lionel Wallace is haunted by the memory of a green door in a white wall, leading to an enchanted garden. Can he ever find it again?

Duration: 90 mins approx.

Abandoned by their parents, Maya and her older brother Bailey are sent to live with their grandmother and uncle in the small Southern town of Stamps in Arkansas. Struggling with rejection, they endure the prejudice of their white neighbours and suffer several racist incidents.

One day, their father unexpectedly returns and takes the children to live with their mother in St Louis, Missouri. Aged only eight, Maya is abused by her mother’s boyfriend, an experience that haunts her for a lifetime. Filled with guilt and shame, she refuses to speak to anyone except Bailey – until she meets Mrs Bertha Flowers, who encourages her love of books, helping her to find her voice and regain her own strong spirit.

Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic, beloved worldwide, which recounts a youth filled with curiosity, wonder, disappointment, frustration, tragedy, and hard-won independence. This radio dramatisation, starring Adjoa Andoh, Indie Gjesdal and Pippa Bennett-Warner, plays out her extraordinary story with dramatic verve and poetic brilliance.

Cast:
Narrator (Older Maya)…Adjoa Andoh
Maya…Indie Gjedsal/Pippa Bennett-Warner
Bailey…Roshawn Hewitt
Momma…Cecilia Noble
Uncle Willie/Freeman/Daddy…Richard Pepple
Steward/Lawyer…John Lightbody
Girl…Francesca Elise
Mother…Ellen Thomas
Bertha Flowers…Nikki Amuka-Bird
Spanish voices… Maider Jáuregui, Rocío Mesonero, Celia Romo, Julio Villa-García, Hugo Sánchez and Francisco Oda-Ángel @ Instituto Cervantes,Manchester
Receptionist…Lauren Cornelius

Dramatised by Patricia Cumper
Produced by Pauline Harris

Running time: 1 hour 15 mins approx.

This third and final Clue treasury features a panoply of specials based around the perennial ‘antidote to panel games’. In the mix are I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Christmas Clue, featuring the team’s unique interpretation of A Christmas Carol; Humph in Wonderland, in which they venture down a rabbit hole; and In Search of Mornington Crescent, in which Andrew Marr peers behind the veil of secrecy surrounding that illustrious game.

Also included are two shows commemorating the programme’s inimitable original host, the late, much-missed Humphrey Lyttelton. In Chairman Humph, presented by Stephen Fry, friends and admirers including Tim Brooke-Taylor, Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden recall Humph’s numerous Clue highlights, while in Humph Celebration Concert, Stephen Lyttelton introduces an exceptional evening of music and comedy celebrating his father. Finally, arriving just after they’ve had their tea, are all three series of spin-off comedy The Doings of Hamish & Dougal.

Among the performers in this superb collection are Willie Rushton, Sandi Toksvig, Andy Hamilton, Rob Brydon, Linda Smith, Jeremy Hardy, Jack Dee, Dame Judi Dench, Sir Michael Gambon and Alison Steadman.

In this original compilation of eyewitness accounts, BBC correspondents and official observers describe the contentious fire-bombing of Dresden in February, the liberation of Belsen in April, and the dropping of the atomic bomb in August.

At home the July election produced a shock Labour landslide, putting Churchill out of office. Those close to him, politicians and family, analyse the reasons for his defeat. Its consequences were far-reaching, and led ultimately to the foundation of the Welfare State.

Gradually the country returned to normal life; cricket and football matches were resumed, and cinema audiences increased as people enjoyed more leisure. At the same time, deadlock with the Soviet Union at the Potsdam conference was sowing the seeds of a new kind of conflict: ‘cold’ war.

For demobbed troops and returning POWs there were more immediate problems: the unexpected tensions of ‘coming home’. But at least there was the consolation of the first peace-time Christmas since 1938.

Elizabeth Jane Howard’s five book chronicle of the upper-middle class Cazalet family begins in 1938, as siblings Hugh, Edward, Rupert and Rachel join together for another family holiday at Home Place, their house in the Sussex countryside.

During the course of The Light Years, Marking Time, Confusion, Casting Off and All Change, the progress of their lives, and those of their children, will be charted. As their stories unfolds we gain a vivid insight into the lives, hopes and loves of three generations during the Second Word War and beyond.

Dramatised by Sarah Daniels and Lin Coghlan, and with a large cast of actors across all five books, this remarkable radio event adds a new dimension to Elizabeth Jane Howard’s extraordinary chronicles. The first four Cazalet novels sold over a million copies, with the fifth being published in 2013, shortly before the author’s death.

Samuel Pepys was 26 when he decided to start keeping a diary, in January 1660. For the next ten years he faithfully recorded the day’s events and confessed his innermost thoughts. That diary has since become one of our most important, and fascinating, historical documents.

Pepys gave us eyewitness accounts of some of the great events of the 17th century, including the Great Fire of London and the Second Dutch War. He also told us what people ate and wore, what they did for fun, the tricks they played on each other, what they expected of marriage, and even how they conducted love affairs. He described London – the frozen river Thames, the rising crime rate and the poverty – and recorded the details of his own life: his wife, rivals, lovers and friends, his work for the Navy, his drinking and social life.

Over 350 years may have passed since Pepys first put pen to paper, but the man and his preoccupations feel surprisingly familiar. In this major BBC Radio dramatisation of the journals, the sights and sounds of his world are vividly conjured. This collection comprises all ten radio series plus a special Saturday Drama centring on the Great Fire of London.

Inferno: Thirty-five year old Dante finds himself in the middle of a dark wood, in extreme personal and spiritual crisis. Hope of rescue appears in the form of the venerable poet Virgil, now a shade himself, who offers to lead Dante on an odyssey through the afterlife, beginning in the terrifying depths of Hell.

Purgatorio: Dante is led up Mount Purgatory by his guide. They encounter numerous souls who have embarked on the same difficult journey – one that will eventually lead to their spiritual salvation.

Paradiso: Dante’s journey comes to a glorious conclusion as he is led by Beatrice, through the spheres of Paradise and into the presence of God himself. As they ascend, they encounter a number of souls who have also achieved blessedness.

Many years later, the older Dante reflects on the episodes from his life that have inspired his great poem.

Anyone who’s visited Narnia wants to go back again, and these radio dramas make for a hugely entertaining first-time or return journey, with a cast including Bernard Cribbins, Maurice Denham, Richard Griffiths, Martin Jarvis, Sylvester McCoy, John Sessions, Fiona Shaw and Timothy Spall.

The Magician’s Nephew: When Polly and Digory discover some magic rings, they begin the most exciting and dangerous journey of their lives – and encounter the mighty lion Aslan?

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: Lucy, Peter, Edmund and Susan enter a magical world of talking fauns and flying horses, where the evil White Witch has cast Narnia in perpetual winter.

14 CDs. 15 hrs 8 mins.

The Horse and His Boy: Shasta and his talking horse Bree flee from a life of slavery and head for the freedom of Narnia, facing many perils along the way.

Prince Caspian: Peter, Susan, Lucy and Edmund are called upon to help Caspian free Narnia of his evil uncle’s regime and reclaim freedom and happiness.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: Edmund, Lucy and Eustace join King Caspian on a perilous mission to find his friends, the seven lost Lords of Narnia.

The Silver Chair: Jill and Eustace set out to find King Caspian’s lost son, and in the grim land of the Earthmen they encounter the wicked Green Lady.

The Last Battle: The King is in danger, and Narnia faces its darkest hour. Eustace and Jill must help its people fight for the future of the once-glorious kingdom.