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From her unique childhood to her all-consuming fascination with Thomas Cromwell that grew into the Wolf Hall Trilogy, Hilary Mantel had a celebrated career as a novelist. Alongside this, she long contributed to newspapers and journals, unspooling stories from her own life and illuminating the world as she found it. This strand of Hilary's writing was an integral part of how she thought of herself. 'Ink is a generative fluid,' she explains. 'If you don't mean your words to breed consequences, don't write at all.' A Memoir of My Former Self collects the finest of this writing over four decades.

Society believes the worst of Justin Alastair, the notorious Duke of Avon. When he encounters a young boy, Léon, who is running from his abusive brother, Avon employs the boy as his page, parading him around parties and other society events in full view of his bitter rival, the Comte de Saint-Vire. But the truth is soon uncovered: Léon is a girl named Léonie and is actually the legitimate child of the Comte and his wife. While Avon is intent on his plan to reveal the Comte’s duplicity and ruin him, he is charmed by Léonie’s kindness, falls in love, and becomes a changed man.

London’s bright young things are partying, Soho’s nightlife is buzzing, and Augusta Peel is hiding in her basement. She has a reason to hide there: it’s home to her Bloomsbury workshop where she repairs old, neglected books. After a busy time during the war, all Augusta wants is peace and quiet. But events take a turn when Augusta agrees to chaperone nineteen-year-old Harriet Jones on a date. Failing to get her home on time, she ends up in a riotous nightclub. She can’t imagine the evening getting much worse when the police raid it. But then the murder happens.

Oscar Wilde's first play confronts the hypocrisy of public "morality" compared with genuine, private kindness. The reasons for its continued popularity are not difficult to identify: the play's witty dialogue contains many of Wilde's most quoted aphorisms, its stylish setting provides opportunities for elegant presentation, and its cast of memorable characters play out a story which is genuinely moving. This new audio production brings together a full cast worthy of Wilde's creative genius.

Featuring a mix of award-winning comedians and newcomers to the scene, there's something for everyone, from stand-up to sketches, satire, songs and poems - with a few surprises thrown in. And if you don't like any of the acts, well...another will be along in about 55 seconds. Presiding over this comedy maelstrom is John Humphrys (the fierce one from the Today programme), who sits at the side of the stage with a stopwatch, ready to cut the microphone when the time is up.

Matilda is the only legitimate daughter of Henry I of England. She’s also the granddaughter of William the Conqueror and is a descendent—through her mother—from the ancient line of Anglo-Saxon kings. She is made a widow in her early twenties and is the only surviving heir to the throne of England. Now she must marry Geoffrey of Anjou, a boy ten years younger, and share the task of leading an often rebellious state. Before long she gives birth to three sons and provides her father with the male heirs he’s longed for.

In London, early in the nineteenth century, five-year-old Mary Godwin, daughter of philosopher William Godwin, plays with her sister Fanny, mourns her deceased mother, and marvels as a hot-air balloon lands not far from the Thames River. Nearby, in Sussex, eleven-year-old Percy Shelley entertains his three sisters by telling them stories and performing tricks with chemicals and fire. A few years later, Mary and Percy meet and fall in love in the Godwin bookshop near Black Friar’s Bridge.

When business magnate Robert Jeffreys announces his investment in airships, he hosts a promotional flight for a group of reporters. Working undercover in the crew is retired spy Augusta Peel. She’d rather be working on her book repair business, but Inspector Fisher of Scotland Yard has persuaded her to help with a surveillance operation. The press trip on the airship takes a turn when a body is found in a cabin. Can Augusta identify the murderer? It’s tricky to find a motive among the sophisticated passengers—some of them are sophisticated liars, too.

When amateur sleuth Augusta Peel receives a mysterious letter about a missing young woman, she can’t resist helping with the search. But the case takes a turn when an art student is found dead in a Bloomsbury square. Could the murder have something to do with Augusta’s investigation? The more questions she asks, the fewer answers she receives. Someone’s hiding something.

In Lolly Willowes, Sylvia Townsend Warner tells of an aging spinster's struggle to break away from her controlling family - a classic story that she treats with cool feminist intelligence, while adding a dimension of the supernatural and strange. Warner is one of the outstanding and indispensable mavericks of 20th-century literature, a writer to set beside Djuna Barnes and Jane Bowles, with a subversive genius that anticipates the fantastic flights of such contemporaries as Angela Carter and Jeanette Winterson.

After her hand is amputated following a tragic accident, Rachel Cooper suffers vivid nightmares of a woman imprisoned in the trunk of a hollow tree, screaming for help. When she begins to experience phantom sensations of leaves and earth with her missing limb, Rachel is terrified she is going mad. But then another hand takes hers, and the trapped woman is pulled into our world.

A lonely young heiress becomes the poorest wealthy woman in Victorian England when her father dies without telling anyone where he hid his fortune. Can Tressa and the no-nonsense estate manager find the fortune before the greedy relatives get to it first? Tressa Harlowe's father did not trust banks, but neither did he trust his greedy extended family. He kept his vast fortune hidden somewhere on his estate in the south of England and died suddenly, without telling anyone where he had concealed it.

Who is Old Tom? A sad and lonely fusspot? Or a forgotten figure whose bewildering deductive abilities hint at something more? Does he ever leave his armchair? Why is he only ever seen or heard by engaging local newspaper reporter Trench? And what surprising secret are the Mayflower Court Flats really hiding?

The Daleks are conquering our galaxy. Nothing can stop them. But Commander Agnes Landen has an idea. On the outer planet Talis Minor, Salus Kade is struggling to keep his colony alive. The last thing he needs is a war to fight. Directed by Nicholas Briggs.

The Earth Alliance is on the brink of victory in the Kedru System. But at what cost?

Meanwhile, deep within the Dalek Empire, Susan Mendes prepares for her latest mission.... Directed by Nicholas Briggs.

On board the star cruiser Amorist, the outcome of the war with the Daleks hangs in the balance. Kade knows what he has to do, but has he been told the truth?

Henry VIII ruled England from 1509 to 1547. As a young man, he was fond of sports and hunting and was said to be uncommonly handsome. Standing more than six feet tall, he loomed large in the lives and minds of his subjects as he navigated his country through the tricky diplomatic and military hazards of the 16th century.

England's first Queen Elizabeth gave her name to an age. Inheriting a bankrupt, famished, and powerless country, she healed its religious rifts, replenished its treasury, redefined diplomatic guile, defeated the Spanish Armada, and inspired a new flowering of English culture. Her father, Henry VIII, beheaded her mother, Anne Boleyn, and Elizabeth was declared a bastard. As Henry kept marrying and discarding wives, she had to be adroit and canny to avoid being snared in the schemes of courtiers plotting to win the crown.

Looking into the past, the Crusades seem incomprehensible. What combination of religious fervor, hatred of people of different faiths, and gall led Europeans of AD 1100 to make their way thousands of miles to conquer the Holy Land? Why did they continue for 200 years? How did the Crusades change the world? The intriguing story is peppered with colorful characters. Over the centuries crusaders saw - and participated in - the evolution of warfare and the transformation of society from feudal fiefdoms to nations and empires.

It's the most important night of the year for the Catskills Shakespeare Theater Company: the annual fundraising performance at the country estate of the wealthy widow Paula Van Dusen. And this year promises to be even more special as the company will give a moonlight performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream as part of the wedding celebrations for Paula's daughter, Belinda, and her fiancé Adrian. But "the course of true love never did run smooth", and in the wake of a disastrous after-party, the stage is set for murder.