The Pit and the Pendulum, The Black Cat, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Raven -classics of poetry and horror, seen in a hundred films, known all over the world. But who wrote these amazing works? Yes, the great Edgar Allan Poe - a familiar name to many perhaps. But who actually was this famous Edgar Allan Poe? Where did he come from? Was he really an opium addict and alcoholic? Did he marry his cousin, a thirteen year old child? Did he have a shocking affair with his wife''s mother? Was he expelled from West Point? Did he attack, sometimes physically, the leading writers of the day? Was...

These scenes from the globe are an odyssey through love, grief, friendship, death, spite, mirth, violence, nightmare and the unknown. They take place variously in fashionable ski resorts in Switzerland; a prestigious language school in Cambridge; an ocean going yacht; a ditch in woodland; David Bowie''s private residence in the Canton de Vaud; the den of a terrorist cell in Holland; mermaids off St David's Head in Wales; the tossing of the caber at the Highland Games in Scotland; all accompanied by tastings from the finest cellars, making for a very heady brew! Armed and Dangerous, the title...

Plays Ancient and Modern move from the eighteenth century to the present day, Bard is the story of the 'Welsh Shakespeare, ' Thomas Edwards, aka Twm O'r Nant, a brick-layer, furnace-builder, bankrupt and write of 'Interludes, ' an early form of play. Twm robustly attacked the corruption of the day but his attacks were ignored by the authorities and the academics, for Twm wrote exclusively in Welsh. Bard puts Wales's own 'Shakespeare' on stage for the first time. A second rebel of the time was one Edward Williams, aka 'Iolo, ' a stone-mason, and, like Twm, a supporter of the French and...

A saga of England's first Empire - not in America, Africa or India, but in the lands of her nearest neighbour, France. After Henry V's victory at Agincourt, England's fifteen-year occupation of Paris began. It was an object lesson in Empire building - empire losing. England's burning of Joan of Arc lost them their first overseas empire. Henry's untimely death left the succession open. Into it stepped Henry's widow, Queen Catherine of Valois, and her Welsh squire, Owen Tudor, bearer of the dragon of Wales. Out of his secret union came one of the most moving love stories in European history....

Set in Wales in a cottage by the sea. A ruined poet returns home to his ruined friends - Aaron of the phantom daughters, the sea-wracked, Johnny Conch, Black Branwen, Olga the Ever-Ready, who battle for the poet's survival or destruction. Who wins in the end?

Edward Williams (1746-1826) also known by his Bardic name, 'Iolo Morganwg, ' was a Republican, Radical, Revolutionary, Pacifist, Abolitionist, Flutist, Song Writer, Jailbird, Lexicographer, Grammarian, Antiquarian, Encyclopaedist. Linguist, Debtor, Mediaevalist, Folklorist, Bird Watcher, Agriculturist, Master Mason, Bookshop Owner, Poet (in both Welsh and English) a Bard, a Druid, a Visionary, a 'Noble Savage, ' a 'Child of Nature, ' a 'Pagan' - in short, a true Herald of Wales He was also a 'fabulist' and 'invented' a whole cosmology and mythology relating to Stonehenge and the Druids, and...