A severe case of World War Two takes James Herriot away from his vet's life in the Dales and into a training camp somewhere in England.... Square-bashing in his uniform of RAF blue, he daydreams of the livestock he left behind him.

As a Member of Parliament and later as Vice-Chamberlain, Lord Hervey (1696-1743) became an intimate of the Royal Court. It was an excellent vantage point from which to wield his sparkling pen and observe the complex power and personality struggles of the time

Two distinguished-looking Victorians, both learned and serious, yet from very different worlds: one a brilliant polymath, the other a madman and a murderer. Dr James Murray, erudite and pious, who broke free from an impoverished childhood to become a towering figure of British scholarship. Dr WC Minor, lascivious, charasmatic, a millionaire American Civil War Surgeon and homicidal lunatic. Confined to Broadmoor Asylum, he pursued his passion for words and become one of the Oxford English Dictionary's most valued contributors.