As a special Christmas treat – and a thank you to all our listeners – we've teamed up with the British Library to select seasonal scenes from some of the world's greatest literature. Simon Callow and Juliet Stevenson read poetry, fiction and memoir which conjures up the festive season.
The playlist
1. Wiliam Wordsworth, from The River Duddon
2. Laurie Lee, from Cider With Rosie
3. Thomas Hardy, The Oxen
4. John Donne, Nativity
5. Anthony Trollope, from Orley Farm
6. Rudyard Kipling, Christmas In India
7. Percy Bysshe Shelley, Dirge For The Year
8. Henry James, from English Hours
9. William Makepeace Thackeray, The Mahogany Tree
10. Alfred Tennyson, Ring Out, Wild Bells from In Memoriam
Download the full recording of A Literary Christmas from the British library online shop
