Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Thomas Hardy (1840 -1928) and his commitment to poetry, which he prized far above his novels. In the 1890s, once he had earned enough from his fiction, Hardy stopped writing novels altogether and returned to the poetry he had largely put aside since his twenties. He hoped that he might be ranked one day alongside Shelley and Byron, worthy of inclusion in a collection such as Palgrave's Golden Treasury which had inspired him. Hardy kept writing poems for the rest of his life, in different styles and metres, and he explored genres from nature, to war, to epic. Among his best known are what he called his Poems of 1912 to 13, responding to his grief at the death of his first wife, Emma (1840 -1912), who he credited as the one who had made it possible for him to leave his work as an architect's clerk and to write the novels that made him famous.WithMark Ford Poet, and Professor of English and American Literature, University College London.Jane Thomas Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Hull and Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the University of LeedsAnd Tim Armstrong Professor of Modern English and American Literature at Royal Holloway, University of LondonProducer: Simon Tillotson

In a programme first broadcast in May 2019, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Mary Shelley's (1797-1851) Gothic story of a Swiss natural philosopher, Victor Frankenstein, and the creature he makes from parts of cadavers and which he then abandons, horrified by his appearance, and never names. Rejected by all humans who see him, the monster takes his revenge on Frankenstein, killing those dear to him. Shelley started writing Frankenstein when she was 18, prompted by a competition she had with Byron and her husband Percy Shelley to tell a ghost story while they were rained in in the summer of 1816 at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva.The image of Mary Shelley, above, was first exhibited in 1840.WithKaren O'Brien Professor of English Literature at the University of OxfordMichael Rossington Professor of Romantic Literature at Newcastle UniversityAnd Jane Thomas Professor of Victorian and Early 20th Century Literature at the University of HullProducer: Simon TillotsonThis programme is a repeat