Tadhg Hynes

Our Laodicean Paula Power, the daughter of a wealthy Victorian railway engineer, is the sole inheritor of the ancient De Stancy Castle. The castle requires much modernisation and repair so she sets about securing a young, up and coming architect,...

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is Joyce’s semi-autobiographical first novel. It traces the early life of Stephen Dedalus and his inner struggle with the oppression of Irish society and the Catholic church, ending with his awakening as a poet...

Far From The Madding Crowd is Thomas Hardy's fourth novel. It centres on the lives of five characters: Gabriel Oak, Bathsheba Everdene, Mr. Boldwood, Sgt. Troy and Fanny Robin. The plot involves love, loyalty, death and betrayal and all this is...

Great Expectations is arguably Dickens' finest work. Chapter one opens up in a lonely graveyard on the marshes in southern England where we first meet young Pip and witness a terrifying meeting with an escaped convict. The novel charts the life of Pip...

Reputed as Eliot’s favourite novel Silas Marner is set in the early years of the 19th century. Marner, a weaver, is a member of a small congregation in Lantern Yard. Falsely accused of a crime he didn’t commit, he leaves his home and lives a solitary...

James Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet. His short story, The Dead, the concluding story in Dubliners, often considered as one of the best works of short fiction, concerns a Christmas-time gathering in Dublin. With a beautiful use of language and...

The story takes place in The Winglebury Arms, the chief inn in the little town of Great Winglebury. When an anonymous letter form one of the guests is misinterpreted bythe mayor of the town events don’t go quite as planned! This humorous little tale,...

The Pickwick Papers was Dickens's first novel. Retired businessman and confirmed bachelor, Mr Samuel Pickwick esquire, embarks on a journey through the English countryside accompanied by three fellow “Pickwickians”, Mr Tupman, Mr Snodgrass and Mr...

The Return of the Native (1878) is one of Hardy's most popular novels. Set on the brooding Egdon heath it traces the lives and loves of five people. Clym Yeobright, the native, returns to Egdon from a successful career in Paris to pursue a dream of...

I first decided to record Ulysses in October 2015. Little did I know then what an unforgettable eighteen months lay ahead. Having already recorded Dubliners and Portrait (and being terrified of Ulysses) I decided to give myself a year just to read it....

Under the Greenwood Tree, Hardy's second novel, was published in 1872, became the first of his great series of Wessex novels. The book subtitled "A Rural Painting of the Dutch School" tells the endearing tale of a group of church musicians who...