Illustration of a Medieval Scribe

Literature

Katherine Graham, owner of the Washington Post, and Truman Capote

The real story of Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball

Video podcastAlexandria: the first modern city

Regency Masterclass, with Dr Lizzie Rogers

Portrait of Scottish poet Robert Burns

Robert Burns: 7 facts about the life and work of Scotland's national bard

Employees operate power looms at a cotton mill in Lancashire (Photo by SSPL/Getty Images)

Reading between the lines: the real-life events that inspired Jane Austen

VideoRegency culture

Jane Austen, c1790

Becoming Jane Austen

A Regency gentleman greets a row of ladies

Everything you wanted to know about Jane Austen's England

Regency quiz - week 2

QuizRegency culture

The Bloomsbury Group: everything you wanted to know

Sherlock Holmes: the real history that inspired the detective stories

Simon Ward as the Duke of Buckingham and Faye Dunaway as Milady de Winter in the 1973 film 'The Three Musketeers', 1973

The mystery of the ‘real’ Milady de Winter of The Three Musketeers

Lucy Worsley. (Photo by BBC Studios)

Lucy WorsleyThe love-hate relationship between Sherlock Holmes and his creator: "Conan Doyle felt upstaged by Holmes"

Shakespeare: Past Master8. The Tempest

Shakespeare: Past Master7. The Merchant of Venice

Shakespeare: Past Master6. Macbeth

Shakespeare: Past Master2. Titus Andronicus

Shakespeare: Past Master1. Hamlet

Du Fu: China's greatest poet

Shakespeare: Past Master5. Julius Caesar

Video podcastDu Fu: China's greatest poet

The dark side of Dickens

Shakespeare: Past Master4. Romeo and Juliet

Shakespeare: Past Master3. Henry V

George Orwell’s forgotten wife

A painted portrait of William Blake

William BlakeRomantic visionary

William Caxton shows off his new press in Westminster to Edward IV in a 19th-century painting (Photo by Artepics / Alamy Stock Photo)

How William Caxton printed the first-ever book in English

Geoffrey Chaucer5 key things to know

Wife of Bath

The Wife of Bath: how Chaucer's character gives a voice to medieval women

Antique and rare books including English playwright William Shakespeare's (1564-1616) first folio are lit by candlelight in the library at Longleat stately home, Wiltshire, England, February 1968.

QuizHow much do you know about Shakespeare's life and work?