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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: More Letters to Writers: Dear Mary...

Dear Mary...

More Letters to Writers

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Ian Sansom writes to Frankenstein author, Mary Shelley, to ask her how on earth she coped?

Continuing his imaginary correspondences with some of the world's great writers, Ian Sansom has put together a letter to Frankenstein author, Mary Shelley.

'Dear Oscar Fingal O'Flaherty Wilde,

Do you mind if I just call you Oscar? It's just you always seemed so approachable yet ultimately unknowable...a bit like the Queen.' 

Continuing his series of imaginary correspondences, Ian Sansom finds he's in the gutter, looking at the stars again. As his dispatches to some of the world's great writers resume, Ian is increasingly shocked by their unexpectedly frank and direct answers...

'Dear Dante,

Did you really meant all that stuff about people being thrown into boiling pitch and tar..?'

In his on-going epistolary quest, Ian attempts to find out everything we wanted to know but were too afraid to ask. 

Why did Mary Shelley start so young? How did William Trevor keep going for so long? And what exactly is the significance of Marianne Moore's tricorn hat?

Producer: Conor Garrett

The Essay: More Letters to Writers

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Ian Sansom resumes his imaginary correspondences with the world's great writers.

Continuing his series of imaginary correspondences with the world's great writers, Ian Sansom finds himself once again in the gutter, looking at the stars.

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