The Author's Voice: recordings from the British Library

What a fantastic find from the vaults of the British Library! The Spoken Word: British Writers and American Writers contains rare recordings of author interviews on the BBC. Learn more in the article Now on CD: Library's Treasure Trove of Authorial Voices by Mark Brown, published in The Guardian. Here's a quote from the article about the contents of the title:

They include the only surviving recording of Virginia Woolf, the sole recording of Arthur Conan Doyle, battily explaining the importance of spiritualism and the existence of telepathy, and Gertrude Stein incomprehensibly explaining how she writes.

And here is a quote that seems a bit prophetic:

One of the jolliest interviewees is PG Wodehouse, in conversation with Alistair Cooke in 1963.They talk jocularly about a new theory that automation is going to throw so many people out of work that by the year 2000 every middle-class family will need four servants to keep people employed.

Give a listen here to an interview about this amazing release!

This collection, a 3 CD set of British writers and a 3 CD set of American writers, will be available through the University of Chicago Press.