Judith Hawley
Professor of Eighteenth-Century Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London
15 episodes
Appears in multiple episodes with: John Mullan, Karen O'Brien
Covers topics in categories such as:
Oliver Goldsmith
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the author of She Stoops to Conquer, The Vicar of Wakefield and The Deserted Village who was a great populariser of science and history in his time.
20 February 2025
Also featuring: David O’Shaughnessy, Michael Griffin
CultureAlumni of Trinity College DublinStreathamitesIrish AnglicansIrish male dramatists and playwrightsAlumni of the University of Edinburgh18th-century Anglo-Irish people, 18th-century Irish male writersIrish male novelists18th-century Irish novelists, 18th-century Irish poetsIrish essayistsIrish male poets18th centuryIrelandFielding's Tom Jones
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Henry Fielding's influential comic novel in which the hero Jones has such a fundamentally good nature that even his critics forgive his faults.
13 June 2024
Also featuring: Henry Power, Charlotte Roberts
John Bull
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss John Arbuthnot's satirical figure, created in 1712 as an anthropomorphised bull, and its role as a representation of an English or British everyman.
30 June 2022
Also featuring: Miles Taylor, Mark Knights
Coffee
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of coffee, from its origins in Ethiopia to its role in the spread of ideas, its part in the slave trade and its social impact.
12 December 2019
Also featuring: Markman Ellis, Jonathan Morris
The Gin Craze
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the economic and social factors that led to the craze for gin in the 18th century and the moves to control it
15 December 2016
Also featuring: Angela McShane, Emma Major
Fanny Burney
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of the 18th-century writer Fanny Burney, also known as Frances D'Arblay and Frances Burney, best known for her novel Evelina.
23 April 2015
Also featuring: Nicole Pohl, John Mullan
Culture19th-century English women writersEnglish essayistsEnglish women novelistsEnglish satiristsStreathamites19th-century English novelistsWriters from King's LynnConversationalistsBritish women essayistsEnglish women dramatists and playwrightsWriters from London18th-century English diarists19th-century English dramatists and playwrightsEnglish women poets18th-century English women writersEnglish pamphleteers18th-century English novelists18th century19th centuryTristram Shandy
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Laurence Sterne's comic novel Tristram Shandy.
24 April 2014
Also featuring: John Mullan, Mary Newbould
CultureNovels adapted into radio programs1759 novelsMetafictional novels18th-century British novelsSelf-reflexive novelsNovels adapted into operasNonlinear narrative novelsNovels adapted into comicsBritish satirical novelsIrish novels adapted into films, Irish novels adapted into playsPicaresque novels18th centuryBookLyrical Ballads
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Lyrical Ballads, the 1798 volume of poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
8 March 2012
Also featuring: Jonathan Bate, Peter Swaab
Robinson Crusoe
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Daniel Defoe's seminal novel Robinson Crusoe. Published in 1719, it was an immediate success and is considered the classic adventure story.
22 December 2011
Also featuring: Karen O'Brien, Bob Owens
CultureNovels adapted into radio programsMaritime folkloreBritish novels adapted into television shows18th-century British novelsMale characters in literatureBritish novels adapted into filmsAtlantic slave tradeAdventure film charactersNovels adapted into comicsBritish novels adapted into plays18th centuryBookEconomicsWomen and Enlightenment Science
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the role played by women in Enlightenment science.
4 November 2010
Also featuring: Patricia Fara, Karen O'Brien
Swift's A Modest Proposal
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Jonathan Swift's satirical 1729 pamphlet A Modest Proposal, which reveals much about attitudes to the Irish and the poor in 18th-Century Britain.
29 January 2009
Also featuring: John Mullan, Ian McBride
CulturePeople educated at Kilkenny College18th-century Irish writersEnglish fantasy writersNeoclassical writersEnglish male novelistsAlumni of Hart Hall, OxfordEnglish pamphleteersAlumni of Trinity College DublinEnglish AnglicansEnglish male poetsIrish satiristsEnglish short story writersEnglish male short story writers18th-century Irish novelists, 18th-century Irish poetsAnglican writers18th-century English novelists17th-century Anglo-Irish peopleEnglish satiristsJonathan SwiftEnglish political writers18th-century Anglo-Irish people, 18th-century Irish male writers18th-century pseudonymous writersAnglo-Irish artists, Irish fantasy writersIrish male poets17th century18th centuryIrelandThe Encyclopédie
Melvyn Bragg discusses the French encyclopédie, one of the great achievements of the Enlightenment with contributors such as Voltaire, Rousseau, D’Alembert and Dennis Diderot.
26 October 2006
Also featuring: Caroline Warman, David Wootton
Johnson
Melvyn Bragg discusses Samuel Johnson, a giant of 18th century literature, language and letters, and perhaps the most quotable Englishman to have ever lifted a pen.
27 October 2005
Also featuring: John Mullan, Jim McLaverty
18th-century English male writers18th-century English writersEnglish essayistsEnglish literary criticsPeople with mood disorders18th-century lexicographers, 18th-century writers in LatinAnglican saintsStreathamites18th-century English poetsEnglish AnglicansConversationalistsMale essayistsEnglish travel writersEnglish sermon writersEnglish biographersBurials at Westminster Abbey18th centuryThe Scriblerus Club
Melvyn Bragg discusses the Scriblerus Club which included some of the sharpest satirists of the 18th century.
9 June 2005
Also featuring: John Mullan, Marcus Walsh
Empiricism
Melvyn Bragg discusses the development of the idea formulated by John Locke that all knowledge arises from experience, and looks at its effect on the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.
10 June 2004
Also featuring: Murray Pittock, Jonathan Rée