Julian Thompson on Sir Walter Scott

Sophie Duncan introduces Oscar Wilde by setting him in an accurate historical context. She then moves on to consider the revolutionary aspects of his four plays Lady Windermere's Fan, An Ideal Husband, A Woman of No Importance and The Importance of Being Earnest.

Alex Pryce considers how writers are readers, influenced and inspired by the works of other writers. Taking as a starting point the literary afterlife of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, and the influence of Romantic John Keats on the First World War Poet Wilfred Owen, Alex discusses how writers are challenged by precursory writers, and introduces some theories of influence from T.S. Eliot and Harold Bloom.

Dr Julian Thompson considers a writer described by Kingsley Amis as 'our greatest writer of short stories'. In this discussion of Rudyard Kipling, Julian acknowledges Kipling's lack popularity with readers, but argues for the greatness of short stories from across his ouvre and positions them as precursors to modernism.

Dr Julian Thompson introduces 'the least read great writer in our literature'. He describes the popularly of Walter Scott in his own time and suggests some highlights of the 'living Scots' of his fiction.

Linda Gates, Professor of Voice at Northwestern University (USA) discusses how Shakespeare's poetry and plays lend themselves to vocal performance by discussing how breath can be used to 'punctuate the thought'.

Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, draws on her experience as a trustee of the Booker Prize and as a judge for many other literary prizes to offer a response to the question, 'What is a Classic?'.

Judith Luna, the Senior Commissioning Editor at Oxford World's Classics, draws on her practical involvement in re-launching the Oxford World's Classics series in 2008 to give a publisher's take on the question, 'What is a Classic?'.

Dr Ankhi Mukherjee, Wadham college, Oxford, speaks to the question 'What is a Classic?' by examining the residual influence of the Eurocentric literary canon in the age of world literature and emergent formations of canons and classics.

Professor Jon Mee, University of Warwick, discusses how Dickens's fiction can be considered 'cinematic' by drawing attention to the shifting points of view in Oliver Twist, Our Mutual Friend, and other novels. He relates this to work done in recent and historical adaptations of Dickens's work.

Professor Kathyrn Sutherland from the University of Oxford talks around the manuscripts of Jane Austen, what we can learn from them about her family life but also her writing style and techniques.