The Essay

To mark the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, a series of essays about Napoleon Bonaparte. The writer Andrea Stuart was born and raised in the Caribbean. The subject of her second book Josephine de Beauharnais, the first wife of Napoleon, was born on Martinique to a wealthy white Creole family. In a narrative crossing back and forth between their shared Caribbean origins, Andrea Stuart explores Josephine's journey away from the tropics and the significance of her origins in her relationship with another exile from an island, the world-famous Corsican mountaineer.First broadcast in December 2012.

Julia Blackburn tells an extraordinary tale of sleuthing for the ghost of Napoleon on St Helena, his last island and his final unsought home. The first of five essays as part of BBC Radio 3's 2012 Napoleon Season, marking two hundred years since his historic retreat from Moscow.Julia had long wanted to write about Napoleon's final days. She set off for St Helena and Longwood House - the Emperor's last home prison - and tried to enlist the support of two official parties. She contacted the British Governor of the island and the French Consul who took responsibility for what became a tiny piece of France after the Emperor's death. Neither bothered to reply so Julia was forced to seek answers by exploring other paths back into the life of Napoleon's last days on St Helena. A lonely giant tortoise came to her rescue along with some other human inhabitants of the island - or Saints as they call themselves. Producer: Tim Dee First broadcast 03/12/2012.

Winner of the Nobel Prize in 1923, William Butler Yeats is a commanding presence in 20th-century literature and has inspired, and occasionally infuriated, successive generations of readers, writers, and performers ever since. Marking the 150th anniversary of his birth on 13th June 1865, five of Ireland's leading cultural figures reflect on their relationship with his work. The authors include novelist John Banville, actor Fiona Shaw, writer Fintan O'Toole and poet Paul Muldoon.In this edition, Ireland's current Professor of Poetry, Paula Meehan, explores the influence of the magical and the mystical in the work of WB Yeats.Producer: Stan Ferguson.

Winner of the Nobel Prize in 1923, William Butler Yeats is a commanding presence in 20th-century literature and has inspired, and occasionally infuriated, successive generations of readers, writers, and performers ever since. Marking the 150th anniversary of his birth on 13th June 1865, five of Ireland's leading cultural figures reflect on their relationship with his work. The authors include actor Fiona Shaw, writer Fintan O'Toole and poets Paul Muldoon and Paula Meehan.In this edition, Booker Prize-winning author John Banville explains his long-held love for Yeats's 1928 collection, 'The Tower'.Producer: Stan Ferguson.

Winner of the Nobel Prize in 1923, William Butler Yeats is a commanding presence in 20th-century literature and has inspired, and occasionally infuriated, successive generations of readers, writers, and performers ever since. Marking the 150th anniversary of his birth on 13th June 1865, five of Ireland's leading cultural figures reflect on their relationship with his work. The authors include novelist John Banville, actor Fiona Shaw, writer Fintan O'Toole and poet Paula Meehan.In this edition, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon explores the connections between Yeats's post-World War One masterpiece 'The Second Coming' and Shelley's 'Ozymandias' written a century earlier in the aftermath of the Battle of Waterloo. Producer: Stan Ferguson.

Marking the 150th anniversary of his birth on 13th June 1865, five of Ireland's leading cultural figures reflect on their relationship with the poet, dramatist and prose writer, William Butler Yeats.Winner of the Nobel Prize in 1923, Yeats is a commanding presence in 20th-century literature and has inspired, and occasionally infuriated, successive generations of readers, writers, and performers ever since. The series includes Fiona Shaw, John Banville and Paul Muldoon.In this edition, writer and cultural commentator, Fintan O'Toole, explains that you don't always have to like everything about the man himself to appreciate the wonder of the poetry of WB Yeats.Producer: Stan Ferguson.

Winner of the Nobel Prize in 1923, William Butler Yeats is a commanding presence in 20th-century literature and has inspired, and occasionally infuriated, successive generations of readers, writers, and performers ever since. Marking the 150th anniversary of his birth on 13th June 1865, five of Ireland's leading cultural figures reflect on their relationship with his work. The authors include novelist, John Banville, writer Fintan O'Toole and poets, Paul Muldoon and Paula Meehan. In this edition, celebrated actor and director Fiona Shaw explains the lasting impact of her childhood introduction to the work of WB Yeats.Producer: Stan Ferguson.

Unthank, Brigadoon, Thrums. Scottish literature is filled with place names that can't be found in a gazeteer or GPS. The literary critic Stuart Kelly explores the imaginary locations that have provided the settings for some of Scotland's greatest novels. He concludes his visit to imaginary Scottish places with a visit to Brigadoon.

Scottish Literature is filled with imaginary places. Today Stuart Kelly explores Alasdair Gray's Unthank, the nightmarish setting for 1981's Lanark.

Brigadoon, Unthank, and today Duncairn. Literary critic Stuart Kelly explores the fictional Scottish cities that never appear on any map.