Robert Edric, The Screwtape Letters, and Raymond Briggs

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Robert Edric Mariella talks to the novelist Robert Edric about his interest in the composer Ivor Gurney. A prodigiously talented poet and musician, Gurney's promising youth was followed by twenty years of deteriorating mental health, and after serving in the trenches he spent most of the rest of his life in mental institutions. Robert Edric explains why he chose to write a novel based on this sad period of Gurney's life. History of Children's Literature The Children's Laureate Michael Rosen joins Mariella to discuss a new history of children's literature with its author, Seth Lerer. The Screwtape Letters In 1942 CS Lewis published a satirical novel which became an immediate bestseller. The Screwtape Letters imagines the correspondence between a senior devil and his nephew, as the younger servant of Satan attempt to corrupt a human "patient". The Reverend Richard Coles revisits CS Lewis's contribution to Christian satire. Raymond Briggs Raymond Briggs is one of this country's best-loved graphic novelists. As his 1980 classic Gentleman Jim is republished, he recalls its composition and tells Mariella why he doesn’t get any less gloomy as he gets older.