Going To Pieces In The Box

More art - typically sentimental, traditional art - has made its way into more homes via the jigsaw puzzle than virtually any other medium.

While it has since become the purveyor of comforting landscapes to the masses, it started life an educational tool championed by the likes of philosopher John Locke.

In 1760, London mapmaker John Spilsbury mounted one of his maps on hardboard and cut into pieces to help children learn geography. "Going to Pieces in the Box" will tell the story of how, since then, it has become such a core feature of childhoods across the world.

Janet Ellis hears how jigsaws hit their first major peak in the Great Depression, when 10,000,000 a week sold to families looking for cheap pastimes and how they were used by immigration officers on Ellis Island to determine who should be allowed in to the land of the free.

Plus an exploration of how popular culture has flirted with the jigsaw, in novels and films as diverse as "Mansfield Park", "Citizen Kane" and most powerfully Perek's novel "Life: A User's Manual"

Academics and enthusiasts such as Margaret Drabble help to explain the jigsaw's great allure.

This colourful and lively feature will show how jigsaws continue to be incredibly popular, having evolved into 3D puzzles and of course made their way onto the internet, where no young children's games site is without one.

Producer: Geoff Bird

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2009.