Author Description

The award-winning story of Britain, from the arrival of Julius Caesar in 55BC to the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, specially written for BBC Radio 4 by Christopher Lee, narrated by Anna Massey and featuring extracts from Sir Winston Churchill's History of the English Speaking Peoples read by Peter Jeffrey.Volume 10, the last in the series, covers the years 1837 to 1901: the Victorian age. Queen Victoria's 64-year reign oversaw huge social changes, wrought by Palmerston, Gladstone and Disraeli; Dickens, Trollope, Robert Louis Stevenson, Gilbert and Sullivan; the first bicycle, the first electric light bulb, the Salvation Army and the American Civil War.By the end of her long life, Victoria was witness to the shift in world power and the stage was set for a new century of unimaginable turmoil. But her own presence had been so dominant that the age which ended with her death would forever be remembered by her name.