Opening Lines

During the mid-19th century America was undergoing unprecedented change. New railroads and canals allowed people and goods to criss-cross the country, as the old agrarian economy was replaced by a fast-paced industrialised one. This rapid market expansion was driven by profit and underpinned by slavery.
As the lives of Americans began to speed up, Henry David Thoreau took time out to ask himself a question - is this the best way to live? In 1845, when he was 27 years old, he built a one-roomed cabin next to Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts, and began an experiment in what he called ‘living deliberately’.
During the two years he spent at Walden Pond, Thoreau lived simply. He studied, read widely, went for long walks, and often just sat and contemplated the natural world around him. The journal he kept during the two years he lived in his microhouse would become Walden, a genre-defying mix of memoir, essay, nature diary, philosophical treatise and self-help guide. The book was not an immediate success but steadily grew in popularity after Thoreau’s early death at the age of 44. Walden is now regarded as a foundational work of both American literature and Transcendentalist philosophy. It has been continuously in print since 1862.
John Yorke has worked in television and radio for over 30 years and shares his experience as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. He created the BBC Writers Academy and trained a generation of screenwriters - now with thousands of hours of television to their names. His acclaimed books Into the Woods and Trip to the Moon explore the structure and power of narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of storytelling, including many podcasts for R4.
Contributors:
Laura Dassow Walls, author of Henry David Thoreau: A Life. Professor Emerita of English at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana.
Kristen Case, poet and Thoreau scholar. Editor of the Oxford Handbook of Henry David Thoreau. Editor of essays on Thoreau and author of Thoreau’s Kalendar – Charts and Observation of Natural Phenomena.
Tracy Fullerton, game designer, educator and writer, best known for Walden, a game. Professor in the USC Interactive Media & Games Division of the USC School of Cinematic Arts and Director of the Game Innovation Lab at USC.

Reader: Eric Stroud
Production Hub Coordinator: Dawn Williams
Researcher: Henry Tydeman
Sound: Iain Hunter
Producer: Kate McAll
Executive Producer: Caroline Raphael
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4

The headless horseman who haunts Sleepy Hollow in Washington Irving’s ghost story has become an iconic figure in American popular culture, thanks to many film and TV adaptations, ranging from a 1922 silent movie to an episode of Scooby Doo.
John Yorke looks at how this deceptively simple tale made Irving an overnight literary superstar when it was published in an 1820 collection of short stories that also included Rip van Winkle, and why it was so influential on the work of the next generation of American writers including Herman Melville and Mark Twain.

John Yorke has worked in television and radio for over 30 years and shares his experience as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. He created the BBC Writers Academy and trained a generation of screenwriters - now with thousands of hours of television to their names. His acclaimed books Into the Woods and Trip to the Moon explore the structure and power of narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of storytelling, including many podcasts for R4.
Elizabeth Bradley has edited two Penguin Classic editions of Washington Irving's work and is Vice President of Programs and Engagement at Historic Hudson Valley.
Brian Jay Jones is the author of Washington Irving: An American Original and several other best-selling biographies.
Reader: Riley Neldam
Music: Torquil MacLeod
Researcher: Henry Tydeman
Production Hub Coordinator: Dawn Williams
Sound: Sean Kerwin
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Executive Producer: Caroline Raphael
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4

In this second episode, John Yorke assesses the criticism levelled against James Fenimore Cooper’s 1826 novel The Last of the Mohicans - primarily that it is responsible for the widely held, inaccurate, view that indigenous Americans were inevitably disappearing during the period the novel is set, and that that false narrative was used to justify colonisation.
Also, John delves deeper into the author’s background to understand his influences, and asks what we should make of The Last of the Mohicans today.
John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years and shares his experience as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. As creator of the BBC Writers Academy, he's trained a generation of screenwriters - now with over 70 green lights and thousands of hours of television to their names. He is the author of Into the Woods, the bestselling book on narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of narrative - including many podcasts for Radio 4.

Contributors:
Jordan Abel, Nisga’a writer and academic.
Richard Slotkin, American Cultural Historian.

Credits:
Readings by Eric Stroud
Excerpts from The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, 1826.
Excerpt from Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses, by Mark Tawain, 1895.
Film clip from The Last of the Mohicans, 1992 Morgan Creek Entertainment /
Twentieth Century Fox.
Excerpt from Empty Spaces by Jordan Abel, 2023, read by the author.
Researcher: Henry Tydeman
Sound: Sean Kerwin
Producer: Jack Soper
Executive Producer: Caroline Raphael
Production Hub Coordinator: Dawn Williams
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds

Published in 1826, the American writer James Fenimore Cooper’s novel The Last of the Mohicans is set during the French and Indian War, in 1750s North America. The story follows a group of British colonists trying to cross frontier land – and examines the complexity of the relationship that existed between the colonialists and the land they were - in essence stealing – the native American’s.
The book, which has been adapted widely for film and TV, mixes fiction with real historical events and has received both huge praise, as one of the foundation stones of American literature, and substantial criticism, for perpetrating a false narrative about the fate of indigenous American people.
In the first of two episodes, John Yorke asks how Cooper came to write The Last of the Mohicans, why was it successful and what we should we make of it today.
John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years and shares his experience as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. As creator of the BBC Writers Academy, he's trained a generation of screenwriters - now with over 70 green lights and thousands of hours of television to their names. He is the author of Into the Woods, the bestselling book on narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of narrative - including many podcasts for Radio 4.

Contributors:
Jordan Abel, Nisga’a writer and academic.
Richard Slotkin, American Cultural Historian.

Credits:
Readings by Eric Stroud
Excerpts from The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, 1826.
Researcher: Henry Tydeman
Sound: Sean Kerwin
Producer: Jack Soper
Executive Producer: Caroline Raphael
Production Hub Coordinator: Dawn Williams
A Pier Production for BBC Radio 4 & BBC Sounds

Ian Sansom, sitting in for John Yorke, takes a look at Joy In the Morning, the 44th Jeeves and Wooster novel by PG Wodehouse. Published in 1946, it revolves around Bertie Wooster’s attempts to avoid a series of social and romantic calamities. The omniscient Jeeves, of course, remains the great calm at the centre of the novel’s storm, devising ingenious solutions just when disaster seems inevitable. Readings from the book are by Stephen Fry, who also describes why he’s such an enthusiast for Wodehouse so much, and what it is he loves about this adventure in the Jeeves and Wooster canon.
Ian Sansom is a novelist, journalist and broadcaster. He is the author of more than 20 books, including the Mobile Library and the County Guides series of detective novels and his work has been translated into more than a dozen languages. He has worked as a columnist for The Guardian and The Spectator and currently writes for the TLS, The Irish Times and The Dublin Review. He is a regular broadcaster on BBC Radio 4 and Radio 3. He was formerly the Director of the Oscar Wilde Centre at Trinity College Dublin and a Professor and Head of English at Queen’s University Belfast.
With readings and contributions from Sir Stephen Fry
Archive:
Archive 1961 BBC Interview – Alistair Cooke speaks to P.G. Wodehouse
Archive 1972 BBC Interview – Keith Dewhurst speaks to P.G. Wodehouse
Reader: Sir Stephen Fry
Producer: Laura Grimshaw
Executive Producer: Sara Davies
Programme Hub Co-ordinator: Nina Semple
Researcher: Henry Tydeman
Sound: Sean Kerwin
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4