Lady Isabel Carlyle leaves her husband and children for the aristocratic Francis Levison, who, as it turns out, has no intention of marrying her. Having been disfigured in a train accident, the unrecognizable Isabel then takes up the position of governess to her own children in the Carlyle household, with tragic consequences. 

A sweeping radio saga of political intrigue, love affairs, financial wrangles and murder, based on the books by Anthony Trollope, creator of The Barchester Chronicles. This epic drama follows several generations of the Palliser dynasty as they navigate the twists and turns of political and high society in Victorian England. Starring Ben Miles as Plantagenet, Sophie Thompson as Glencora, Conleth Hill as Phineas and David Troughton as the Narrator, with a star cast including Bertie Carvel, Juliet Stevenson, Greg Wise and Rachael Stirling. 

Jessica Raine stars in all four BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisations of John Galsworthy's Forsyte novels. An irresistible family saga of love, money and betrayal, The Forsytes: The Complete Series encompasses four acclaimed BBC Radio 4 productions of Galsworthy's perennially popular epic, spanning 50 years from 1886 to 1936.

A collection of the BBC’s dramatisations and readings of W. Somerset Maugham’s fiction, with star casts including Alex Jennings, Dirk Bogarde, and Janet Maw. 

Barbara Pym is one of the 20th-century's wittiest, and most underrated, novelists. Her perceptive comedies of manners, centred around the domestic lives and loves of unassuming middle-class Englishwomen, won her many devoted readers and saw her hailed as a modern-day Jane Austen. Yet she spent 15 years out of print in the 1960s and '70s, until Philip Larkin championed her work in the Times Literary Supplement. Her seventh novel was subsequently shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and writers from Jilly Cooper to Alexander McCall Smith continue to laud her talent today. 

Elizabeth Gaskell was one of Victorian England's pre-eminent female novelists. Admired by Charles Dickens, who described her as his 'dear Scheherazade', she mingled storytelling and social realism to superb effect in her highly acclaimed fiction. This comprehensive collection comprises dramas and readings of her finest works and some lesser-known pieces.

The collected BBC radio adaptations of George Eliot’s pioneering Victorian novels, known for their realism and psychological insight. Includes Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda.

Two BBC Radio 4 adaptations of Victor Canning’s comic novels about the exploits of a shy Solicitor’s Clerk, starring Richard Griffiths. Edgar Finchley is middle-aged, unassuming and not in the habit of taking holidays - but in these two delightful dramatisations, he unexpectedly discovers the delights of travel as he crosses the Channel to the Continent and explores the English countryside.

The acknowledged ‘queen of Regency romance’, best-selling author Georgette Heyer, also penned a dozen delightful mystery novels. Included here are dramatisations of four of her finest stories from both genres, full of her characteristic wit, charm and period detail.

1939, and naïve young newlywed Harriet Pringle arrives in Bucharest with her husband, Guy - just as Europe is about to rip itself apart. She believes she knows everything about the man she has married, but soon realises she knows nothing. Guy is oblivious to her needs and desires, seeming only to care about his job as a university lecturer, his friends and the beautiful, voluptuous Sophie. Struggling to build a life in a strange city, in the face of imminent invasion, Harriet feels bereft - and increasingly isolated. 

Dramatisations and readings of EM Forster’s finest works, plus Stephen Wakelam’s radio play A Dose of Fame and the documentary feature Forster in India: Sex, Books and Empire. One of the greatest English novelists of the 20th century, EM Forster was also an accomplished short story writer. This collection includes stunning adaptations of his classic novels A Passage to India, Where Angels Fear to Tread, A Room with a View and Howards End. Among the star casts are Penelope Wilton, Ellie Kendrick, Sian Thomas, Emilia Fox, Sheila Hancock and John Hurt.

Wilkie Collins was one of Victorian England's best-loved and best-selling authors, and a crime-fiction pioneer. His enthralling 'sensation novels' such as The Woman in White paved the way for today's thrillers and his tour de force The Moonstone is one of the first, and greatest, modern-detective stories. This collection features dramatisations of these two masterpieces, with star casts including Toby Stephens (The Woman in White) and John Sharp (The Moonstone). Also included are adaptations of three of Collins' other major novels.

Set in the 1830s, this ‘study of provincial life’ introduces us to young, idealistic Dorothea Brooke, who accepts a proposal from scholarly Edward Casaubon, hoping to forge a loving partnership of intellectual equals. But on honeymoon in Rome, she swiftly becomes disillusioned. Trapped in an unhappy marriage, she finds solace in her friendship with Casaubon’s cousin, Will Ladislaw - only for her controlling husband to suspect her of betrayal and set out to test her loyalty. 

Evelyn Waugh is one of the pre-eminent English novelists of the 20th century. This collection comprises six of his finest works, dramatised by award-winning writer Jeremy Front, including Decline and Fall, Brideshead Revisited, Scoop and Sword of Honour (The Waugh Trilogy).

First published between 1870 and 1893, Émile Zola’s 20-book cycle chronicling four generations of the Rougon-Macquarts was a shocking exposé of the decadence, degradation and moral decay of 19th-century France. It included some of his greatest novels, among them his masterpiece, Germinal. These innovative, ambitious dramas, first broadcast on Radio 4 over 24 hours in 2015-16, are a radical reimagining of Zola’s classic series, introducing us to 104-year-old matriarch, Dide, imprisoned in an asylum in southern France.