A Literary Love Affair

By: William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy, Robert Browning, Walter Raleigh, Oscar Wilde, John Keats

Narrated by: Natalie Thomas, Benjamin O’Mahony

This anthology looks back over some of the great love affairs of literary history. It includes readings of poetry, letters and scenes from fiction written by British poets and authors from Shakespearian times to the twentieth century.

Here are real-life romantic couples, such as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats and Fanny Brawne, Lord Byron and Lady Caroline Lamb, Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning. Alongside them, fictional couples declare their love in the classic literature of Jane Austen, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy and D H Lawrence.

Download the accompanying reference guide.©2014 The British Library Board (P)2014 The British Library Board

Critic reviews

"An excellent selection of poetry, correspondence and prose, including letters between famous literary couples like the Shelleys and the Brownings. Thomas and O'Mahoney's expressive readings sizzle with chemistry." ( The Lady Magazine)

"...practise for falling in love again by listening to A Literary Love Affair, a cleverly compiled selection of letters to and from lovers (Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII, Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft, Byron and Caroline Lamb, the Brownings, Oscar and Alfred) and in novels ranging from Pride and Prejudice to Women in Love. Narrators Natalie Thomas and Benjamin O’Mahoney interact with warmth and sensitivity." (Christina Hardyment, The Times)