John Bowen
Professor of English Literature at the University of York
6 episodes
Appears in multiple episodes with: Rosemary Ashton
Covers topics in categories such as:
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Orwell's dystopian novel where the state rewrites history, war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength - and Big Brother is watching you
15 September 2022
Also featuring: David Dwan, Lisa Mullen
CultureBritish science fiction novelsNovels adapted into radio programsNovels adapted into balletsDystopian novelsBritish novels adapted into television showsEnglish novelsNovels set in fictional countriesBritish novels adapted into filmsNovels adapted into operasCensored booksSocial science fictionBritish political novels, Novels about propaganda, Novels about revolutionaries, Novels about totalitarianism, Novels by George Orwell, Secker & Warburg booksNovels set in LondonBritish novels adapted into playsBookThe Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Anne Bronte's story of the mysterious Helen Graham who seeks a new independent life as an artist after escaping her abusive, alcoholic husband.
30 September 2021
Also featuring: Alexandra Lewis, Marianne Thormählen
Middlemarch
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss George Eliot's Study of Provincial Life, set before the Reform Act 1832 in a small, fictional town in the Midlands surrounded by farmland.
19 April 2018
Also featuring: Rosemary Ashton, Kathryn Hughes
Wuthering Heights
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Emily Bronte's story of Heathcliff and Cathy, of love, hatred, revenge and self-destruction across two generations in a remote moorland home.
28 September 2017
Also featuring: Karen O'Brien, Alexandra Lewis
CultureNovels adapted into balletsFiction about suicideBritish Gothic novelsVictorian novelsBritish novels adapted into television showsNovels set in YorkshireFiction with unreliable narratorsBritish novels adapted into filmsNovels adapted into operasNonlinear narrative novelsNovels set in the 18th century1847 British novelsLove stories1840s fantasy novels, Ghost novelsNovels about revengeFrame storiesWorks published under a pseudonym18th century19th centuryBookDecline and Fall
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Evelyn Waugh's comic novel Decline and Fall, published when the author was 25.
21 February 2013
Also featuring: David Bradshaw, Ann Pasternak Slater
Dickens
Melvyn Bragg discusses the achievements of Charles Dickens What is his political and literary legacy to our age?
12 July 2001
Also featuring: Rosemary Ashton, Michael Slater
Critics of the Catholic ChurchEnglish male novelists19th-century travel writers19th-century English dramatists and playwrightsLiteracy and society theoristsPeople from Somers Town, LondonBritish male essayistsEnglish reformers19th-century English historians19th-century English poetsEnglish Anglicans19th-century English novelistsEnglish male dramatists and playwrightsWriters about activism and social change19th-century pseudonymous writersEnglish male poetsVictorian novelists19th-century British short story writersWriters from the London Borough of CamdenEnglish male journalistsEnglish prisoners and detaineesTrope theoristsEnglish philanthropistsBritish social reformersEnglish male short story writersLecturersBritish critics of religionsAnglican writers19th-century British journalistsEnglish satirists19th-century English non-fiction writers19th-century English essayistsEnglish historical novelistsEnglish male non-fiction writersEnglish travel writers19th-century British philanthropistsWriters of Gothic fictionBurials at Westminster Abbey19th century