Archive of the weekly periodical published by the BBC for radio listeners and later, TV viewers. Includes transcripts and commentary of broadcasts as well as articles and interviews.
The Listener is one of the few records and means of accessing the content of many early broadcasts. In addition to commenting on the intellectual broadcasts of the week, the Listener also previewed major literary and musical shows and regularly reviewed new books.
Over its sixty-two-year history, the Listener attracted the contributions of literary icons such as E. M. Forster, George Orwell, Bertrand Russell, George Bernard Shaw, and Virginia Woolf. It also provided an important platform for new writers and poets, with W. H. Auden, Sylvia Plath, and Philip Larkin being notable examples.