A master of Russian realism, Anton Chekhov is renowned for his meticulously observed plays and short stories exploring the human condition, in all its joys and sorrows. Included here are six of his best-known dramas, as well as Michael Frayn's adaptation of Wild Honey, drawn from an early, untitled Chekhov play; and one documentary exploring Chekhov's life and work. 

In 1920s Leicester, Lewis Eliot must escape the drudgery of a council clerk's office and his provincial lower class background to begin his decades-long rise to power. As the years pass, and Lewis progresses to successful London lawyer, to Cambridge don, to wartime service in Whitehall, to senior civil servant and finally retirement, he faces in his own life and the lives of those around him collapsing marriages, terrible illness, the politics of academia, Nazism, nuclear weapons, the price of power and the ever-present realities of war. 

Featuring a fictional version of himself - 'Marcel' - and a host of friends, acquaintances, and lovers, In Search of Lost Time is Proust's search for the key to the mysteries of memory, time, and consciousness. As he recalls his childhood days, the sad affair of Charles Swann and Odette de Crecy, his transition to manhood, the tortures of love and the ravages of war, he realises that the simplest of discoveries can lead to astonishing possibilities.

Sir Terence Rattigan was one of Britain's greatest playwrights, renowned for his well-crafted dramas of upper-class manners and repressed sexuality. He was hugely popular throughout the 1940s and early '50s, and had the rare distinction of having plays running in three West End theatres simultaneously. Having fallen out of fashion in the '60s, his work is now enjoying a huge revival. Included here are some of his most esteemed plays, adapted for radio and brought together in chronological order in one statement collection.

Swann’s Way is the first of seven volumes in Remembrance of Things Past. It sets the scene with the narrator’s memories being famously provoked by the taste of that little cake, the madeleine, accompanied by a cup of lime-flowered tea. It is an unmatched portrait of fin-de-siècle France.

Renowned novelist and poet Thomas Hardy is best known for his fatalistic, often tragic novels set in the 'realistic dream-country' of Wessex, in south and south-west England. Drawing on his own life, he created some of the most memorable characters and stories in Victorian literature—many of which are included here. In five dramas taken from Radio 4's 'Hardy's Women' season, we meet a few of Thomas Hardy's most compelling female protagonists.

Katherine Mansfield is remembered as one of the great modernist short-story writers, who managed to pack a huge amount of creative work into her 34 years before she died of TB in 1923. This impressive collection includes brand-new full-cast BBC dramatisations of 'Bliss', 'Something Childish but Very Natural', 'Marriage a la Mode', 'Daughters of the Late Colonel', 'The Garden Party', 'Life of Ma Parker and Her First Ball', plus many more readings brought to life by a wealth of narrators.

This collection includes ten plays by Arthur Miller. In The Crucible, Stacy Keach and Richard Dreyfuss lead an all-star cast in Miller’s searing play about witchcraft that famously mirrors the anti-Communist hysteria that held the United States in its grip. Death of a Salesman follows Willy Loman, the iconic traveling salesman whose family is torn apart by his desperate obsession with greatness. In Incident at Vichy, in Nazi-occupied France, nine men are detained under a shadowy pretext and face a terrifying fate.

Polish-born author and mariner Joseph Conrad is widely regarded as one of the greatest English novelists. His 16 years in the merchant navy profoundly shaped his fiction, giving him transformative experiences of adventure and exotic places, and a unique insight into the human psyche. Included here are adaptations of six of his best works, brought together for the first time and collected in chronological order, plus one fascinating bonus programmes exploring his life and art.

Christopher Marlowe was most celebrated writer of his generation, surpassing even William Shakespeare during his lifetime. A playwright, poet, hellraiser, rebel and spy, he lived fast and died young, stabbed to death in a Deptford lodging house aged only 29. This definitive collection comprises all six of his groundbreaking plays.

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. 

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tennessee Williams is one of the three most important American dramatists of the 20th century, alongside Arthur Miller and Eugene O'Neill. Acclaimed for their lyrical language, dark themes and vivid portrayal of the American South, his works have spawned several Oscar-winning films and been translated and performed worldwide. Collected here are some of the best, beginning with the play that launched Williams' career: The Glass Menagerie. 

George Bernard Shaw - or Bernard Shaw, as he preferred to be known - was one of Ireland's foremost dramatists and thinkers. His plays range from contemporary satires to historical allegories, and are infused with ideas, insight, wit and wisdom. Included here are some of his best works, adapted for radio and brought together in reverse chronological order in one statement collection.

Paterson Joseph, John Hurt, Lesley Manville and Harriet Walter are among the cast of BBC Radio 4's epic full-cast dramatisation. Adapted for radio by Timberlake Wertenbaker, Leo Tolstoy's epic story follows the fortunes of three Russian aristocratic families during the Napoleonic War. First broadcast on New Year's Day 2015, the drama also features Alun Armstrong, Natasha Little, David Calder, Phoebe Fox, Sam Reid and Joanna David. Duration: 10 hours approx.

One of the most important and influential Russian writers of the 19th century, Fyodor Dostoevsky is admired worldwide for his great realist novels, exploring questions of morality, philosophy and the nature of existence. This compilation contains the BBC radio productions of his four most famous novels - as well as three lesser-known works and two bonus documentaries - collected together for the first time.