The Ballad of Reading Gaol with Humanitad

Oscar Wilde’s life - like his wit - was alive with paradox. He was both an early exponent and a victim of ‘celebrity culture’: famous for being famous, he was lauded and ridiculed in equal measure. His achievements were frequently downplayed, his successes resented. He had a genius for comedy but strove to write tragedies. He was an unabashed snob who nevertheless delighted in exposing the faults of society. He affected a dandified disdain but was prone to great acts of kindness.

'It's a boy!' or 'It's a girl!' are the first words almost all of us hear when we enter the world. Before our names, before we have likes and dislikes - before we, or anyone else, has any idea who we are. And two years ago, as Juno Dawson went to tell her mother she was (and actually, always had been) a woman, she started to realise just how wrong we've been getting it. 

The Diary of Nobody (1892) created a cultural icon, an English archetype. Anxious, accident-prone, occasionally waspish, Charles Pooter has come to epitomize English suburban life. His diary chronicles encounters with difficult tradesmen, the delights of home improvements, small parties, minor embarrassments, and problems with his troublesome son. The suburban world he inhabits is hilariously and painfully familiar in its small-mindedness and its essential decency.

Beautiful, proud Roxana is terrified of being poor. When her husband leaves her penniless with five children, she must choose between being a virtuous beggar or a rich whore. Embarking on a career as a courtesan and kept woman, Roxana passes from man to man in order to maintain her lavish, glamorous lifestyle. But this life comes at a cost; she is torn between sinful prosperity and the respectability she craves.

At its heart, De Profundis is a love letter and is better known as the De Profundis papers. Written in 1897, while Oscar Wilde was imprisoned in Reading Gaol, De Profundis would become one of his best-known works. The papers include Wilde's account of living a lavish lifestyle and his relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas, both of which he credited for his eventual downfall and imprisonment. The second half of the papers is Wilde's account of prison life and his spiritual awakening.

A haunting, magical fairy tale collection, in which Oscar Wilde beautifully evokes (amongst others) 'The Happy Prince', who was not so happy after all; 'The Selfish Giant', who learned to love little children; and 'The Star Child', who did not love his parents as much as he should.

Magical listening for young and old, narrated by John Moffatt.

The ghost that haunts Canterville Chase has built a marvelous career of midnight haunting. But when an American family moves in, they simply have no respect for permanent bloodstains, nightmarish chains, or ancient legends. They even throw pillows at him.

From the humblest of beginnings as the third of seven sons born to a struggling Kansas couple, Dwight D. Eisenhower emerged as a military leader whose administrative acumen brought clashing personalities together. During his time in office, he was frequently dismissed as a man who would rather play golf than govern, but history has treated the 34th president with a respect that recognizes the strength of his leadership and the breadth of his accomplishments.

An original recording of one of Oscar Wilde's comedic classics and a precise satire of Britain's upper classes. At a gathering at Hunstanton Chase, the young Gerald Arbuthnot has been given a rare opportunity to make something of himself by the cavalier Lord Illingworth, but a chance meeting between his mother Mrs. Arbuthnot and Lord Illingworth reveals that there's more behind the offer than Gerald knows.

"Poems of William Blake" includes: "Songs of Innocence", "Songs of Experience" and "The Book of Thel". All three are volumes of poetry by the English poet and painter, William Blake. "The Book of Thel" is a poem by William Blake, dated 1789 and probably worked on in the period 1788 to 1790. It was illustrated by his own plates, and is relatively short and easy to understand, compared to his later prophetic works. The metre is a fourteen syllable line.