At the time of Washington Irving's death, he was the most famous and widely praised American writer of his or any other era. But his reputation soon dwindled, and today he's known primarily as the author of just two stories ("The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle"), while his groundbreaking works of history, biography, and essays are barely known. ... Show More
Aug 24
825 Henry James's Ghosts (with Morgan Lloyd Malcolm) | My Last Book with David Womersley
In 1895, Henry James suffered through a terrible failure, as his play Guy Domville was greeted by hoots, jeers, and tomatoes being thrown at the play's author. James responded by starting work on his masterpiece The Turn of the Screw, which tells the story of a governess and the ... Show More
1h 8m
Aug 17
824 Why Did Mary Shelley Try to Erase Her? The Claire Clairmont Story (with Emily Franklin) | My Last Book with Mathelinda Nabugodi
It's an often-told, momentous story: how in the summer of 1816, four friends, including famed Romantic poets Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, along with Mary Godwin (soon to be Mary Shelley) and Byron's doctor John Polidori, gathered in a Swiss villa and decided to tell each ... Show More
1h 5m
Aug 13
823 Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, and Shakespeare in a Divided America (with James Shapiro)
United States President Abraham Lincoln and his assassin John Wilkes Booth were both deeply immersed in Shakespeare's works. And yet, the conclusions they reached about how best to end tyranny--a feature of both Macbeth and Julius Caesar--could not have been more different. As Ja ... Show More
54m 57s
Nov 2025
Series 11: Agatha Christie
Was Agatha Christie a creative legend, who dominated an entire genre and continues to captivate a global audience? Or does her choice of language, titles and storylines reveal a much more sinister, dangerous side to the queen of murder? Fatiha El-Ghorri, Jess Fostekew and Eshaan ... Show More
33m 42s