Tales of tragedy, ambition and heroism from the Battle of Marathon and Hannibal’s passage of the Alps to Caesar’s fateful crossing of the Rubicon.

Heart-breaking tales of slavery, in which Britain played a shameful part; and heart-warming tales of Abolition, in which she played a courageous one.

Tales from our cousins to the West, telling of their independence from Britain, their bloody civil war, their runaway prosperity, and the slender thread by which it hangs.

Fables and true tales about animals, including a dog who regularly commuted to Matlock, a horse who didn’t approve of bad language, and a cat who saved her owners from an earthquake.

Tales about the cradle of Western civilisation, from Socrates and the first democracies to the fall of the Roman Empire, the Ottoman yoke, and Britain’s part in the fight for independence.

Passages from English verse, from Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf to Shakespeare’s sonnets, Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade, Kipling’s If and many more.