Travels Through Time

Edmund Richardson: The Quest for the Lost City (1833)

In the early nineteenth-century a hitherto unremarkable man called James Lewis who was serving as a private in the East India Company decided to reinvent himself. He deserted and ran away to the little-known but beautiful city of Kabul in Afghanistan. Once there he came to dedicate himself to a strange and quixotic quest. He sought to find one of the great lost cities of the ancient world: Alexandria Under the Mountains.
In this evocative and beautifully-described episode of Travels Through Time, the academic historian Edmund Richardson takes us back to the year 1833. This was, he argued, the year when James Lewis transformed from an ordinary soldier into a man called Charles Masson – a figure who would change history.
The characters and storylines that feature in this episode arise from Edmund Richardson’s sparkling new book, Alexandria: The Quest for the Lost City which has recently been published in hardback by Bloomsbury.
Edmund Richardson is Associate Professor of Classics at Durham University. In 2016, he was named one of the BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinkers.
As ever, much, much more about this episode is to be found at our website tttpodcast.com.
Show notes
Scene One: Kabul, winter 1833. In the bazaars of Kabul - a warren of stalls and camels and shouting merchants from all over Asia - a bedraggled-looking man, dressed in shabby clothes, is listening to a storyteller.
Scene Two: Bagram, summer 1833. Masson rides out of Kabul in search of Alexander's city. It was called Alexandria beneath the Mountains, and was founded two and a half thousand years earlier.
Scene Three: Ludhiana, northern India, autumn 1833. In the sleepy, dusty town of Ludhiana, the British East India Company's spymaster is looking over reports from his informants in Kabul. He reads about a ragged stranger, who calls himself Charles Masson, and has spent the year hunting for Alexander's lost city.
Memento: Charles Masson’s drinking cup, symbolic of a different way of encountering Afghanistan.
People/Social
Presenter: Violet Moller
Guest: Edmund Richardson
Production: Maria Nolan
Podcast partner: Colorgraph
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Jane Rogoyska: The Katyń Massacre (1940)

In 1943 the discovery of a series of mass graves in the Katyń Forest near Smolensk in the Soviet Union ignited one of the most explosive rows of the Second World War.
The identity of the victims was clear enough. They were the Polish military elite and significant figures – academics, writers, industrials, doctors - from wider Polish society.
But who was responsible? The Germans instantly blamed the Soviets. The Soviets retaliated that the accusation was a ‘vile slander’, intended to mask yet another instance of Nazi wickedness.
In this episode the writer Jane Rogoyska takes us back to the scene of a sinister and bitterly contested crime: the Katyń Massacre.
Jane Rogoyska is the author of Surviving Katyn: Stalin’s Polish Massacre and the Search for Truth  
As ever, much, much more about this episode is to be found at our website tttpodcast.com.
Show notes
Scene One: March 1940, Starobelsk camp, Soviet Ukraine. Bronisław Młynarski and his friends find a mysterious message tied to the collar of a stray dog.
Scene Two: April 1940, Starobelsk camp. NKVD Commissar Kirshin stands on the steps of the ruined church watching the transports of men depart: ‘You are leaving,’ he says, ‘for a place where I would like to go myself.’
Scene Three: July 1940, Griazovets camp near Vologda in the far north of Russia. The artist Józef Czapski gives an informal lecture about Marcel Proust, delivered entirely from memory, to a group of friends lying on the grass in the sun.
Memento: One of the Christmas decorations created by graphic artist Edward Manteuffel while he was a prisoner in Starobelsk camp.
People/Social
Presenter: Peter Moore
Guest: Jane Rogoyska
Production: Maria Nolan
Podcast partner: Colorgraph
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Llewelyn Morgan: Ovid and the Augustan Age (14 AD)

After the political drama of the first century BC came the magnificence of the Augustan Age. This was a peaceful time of great cultural expression – Livy, Virgil, Horace and, the focus of today’s episode, the poet Ovid.
Our guest, the scholar Llewelyn Morgan, takes us back to the very end of this glorious age in Roman history. We see how the people coped with the death of a long-lived emperor and we catch a glimpse of Ovid, the banished poet, who was desperate to seize his chance for a return home.
Professor Llewelyn Morgan is a scholar of Roman literature at Brasenose College, Oxford. He is the author of Ovid: A Very Short Introduction
As ever, much, much more about this episode is to be found at our website tttpodcast.com.
Show notes
Scene One: Rome. The funeral of Augustus, an extraordinary spectacle that he had planned to the last t himself. It was effectively an embodied history of Rome with all the major figures played by people wearing specially designed wax masks.
Scene Two: Tomi. Ovid off in exile on the Black Sea, melancholic and desperate to return to his beloved Rome. He writes poetic letters to a bunch of people he hopes can help him out, including one of the consuls for AD14 and Germanicus, the heir to the throne.
Scene Three: The Rhine. Germanicus dealing with army mutinies that break out on the critical Rhine frontier after Augustus' death. This revealed the real character of the Empire, where power really lay, and also provided insight into the lives of the ordinary people who filled the army ranks.
Memento: A wax mask worn by official mourners at the funeral of the Emperor Augustus.
People/Social
Presenter: Violet Moller
Guest: Llewelyn Morgan
Production: Maria Nolan
Podcast partner: Colorgraph
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Lindsey Davis: A Comedy of Terrors (89 AD)

Today we head back two thousand years to the rich, rowdy, ruthless Roman world of the Emperor Domitian. Our guide is the much-loved novelist Lindsey Davis.
***
For years Lindsey Davis has been captivating readers with her series of detective novels set in the first century AD. Her great protagonists, Falco and Flavia Albia, are names that are probably already familiar to you and enough in themselves to conjure memories of thrilling, twisting tales in Ancient Britain or in the Eternal City itself.
This spring Davis has published the latest book in her Flavia Albia series, A Comedy of Terrors, which is set in Rome during the reign of the Emperor Domitian, and more specifically during the week running up to the Festival of Saturnalia.
For us this means the perfect guide and the perfect setting for a trip into the past. We’ll be giving a hardback copy of A Comedy of Terrors away to one of our newsletter subscribers this week – so to be in with a chance of winning it, make sure you visit our site and sign up.
As ever, much, much more about this episode is to be found at our website tttpodcast.com.
Show notes
Scene One: Bay of Naples, ten years after Vesuvius.
Scene Two: Syria, to witness – the (third) Falso Nero episode.
Scene Three: The Black Banquet where senators and others were terrorised and Domitian’s big ‘friendly’ banquet for the entire Roman people.
Memento: A giant Roman measure of Falernian Wine from the slopes of Vesuvius
People/Social
Presenter: Peter Moore
Guest: Lindsey Davis
Production: Maria Nolan
Podcast partner: Colorgraph
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Helen Carr: The Red Prince (1381)

Civil unrest, a deadly sickness and trouble in the north? We’re visiting the year 1381 in this episode to examine a dramatic moment in ‘the calamitous fourteenth century.’ Our guide is the historian Helen Carr, author of a newly released biography of John of Gaunt - The Red Prince, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster.
John of Gaunt is a compelling figure. He was the son of Edward III, uncle of Richard II, Father of Henry IV and progenitor of the Tudor dynasty. Gaunt lived his life, as Carr explains, against some of the most challenging circumstances in English history.
Helen Carr is an historian of the Fourteenth Century and author of The Red Prince: John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster (April 2021) and What is History, Now? (September 2021).
As ever, much, much more about this episode is to be found at our website tttpodcast.com.
Show notes
Scene One: June London, Wat Tyler and thousands of rebels arrive in London, where they are joined by disgruntled locals and go on a rampage through they city. Their main target is John of Gaunt’s sumptuous home, the Savoy Palace, which they break into and annihilate – theft is not part of their plan, just destruction.
Scene Two: June Berwick on Tweed. Fortunately for him, John of Gaunt, was far away in Berwick on the Scottish border at this time, negotiating a truce. When he heard the terrible news from London, and the rumours that a huge peasant army was on its way north to find him, he ordered his numerous castles to be stocked up.
Scene Three: August the Scottish Borders. John of Gaunt is left hanging for weeks by his young nephew Richard II, awaiting word that he can return to his lands in the south and regain his authority. Percy, the most powerful northern Earl, takes advantage of John’s vulnerability and refuses to give him shelter.
Memento: One of John of Gaunt’s luxurious tapestries that hung in the Savoy Palace before it was destroyed by the rebels. 
People/Social
Presenter: Violet Moller
Guest: Helen Carr
Production: Maria Nolan
Podcast partner: Colorgraph
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Roland Philipps: Mathilde Carré, ‘La Chatte’ (1940)

Roland Philipps takes us to France on the eve of occupation. We follow the shifting fortunes of an extraordinary female double agent - Mathilde Carré, ‘La Chatte’ - whose life embodies the moral ambiguity of this period of French history.
Mathilde story – as told in our guest today’s latest book, Victoire: A Wartime Story of Resistance, Collaboration and Betrayal – illustrates the dark complexities of life in Vichy France. She was neither a perfect French patriot, nor a heartless traitor. What she was, however, was a survivor. 
Roland Philipps was a leading publisher for many years. His first book, A Spy Named Orphan: The Enigma of Donald Maclean, was published in 2018. 
As ever, much, much more about this episode – including contemporary photographs of Vichy France and Mathilde - is to be found at our website tttpodcast.com.
Show notes
Scene One: 17th June 1940.  The Loire.  France is collapsing in the face of the Wehrmacht’s lightning war, millions are fleeing Paris and the north in ‘the Exodus’, amongst them Mathilde Carré, who has left her nursing station and is following the war south, outraged at what she sees as the cowardice of her country.
Scene Two: Mid-September 1940.  Toulouse.  The Vichy government is in place and France is divided between the occupied and non-occupied zones. Despair of Mathilde, about to commit suicide when she decides to become ‘a second Joan of Arc’.
Scene Three: 14th November 1940. Paris. Mathilde Carré arrives in Paris to found the Interallié intelligence network with Roman Czerniawski.
Memento: Mathilde’s ‘Spy’s Handbook’
People/Social
Presenter: Artemis Irvine
Guest: Roland Philipps
Production: Maria Nolan
Podcast partner: Colorgraph
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Ross King: The Bookseller of Florence (1434)

Even in their own time the people of fifteenth-century Florence realised that they were living in a ‘Golden Age.’ In this episode we travel back to the year 1434 to meet some of the magical city’s most fascinating characters – among them, the young bookseller, Vespasiano da Bisticci.
Our guide for this episode is the New York Times bestselling historian Ross King, author of Brunelleschi’s Dome and Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling.
Vespasiano da Bisticci is the hero of King’s latest book, The Bookseller of Florence: Vespasiano da Bisticci and the manuscripts that illuminated the Renaissance.
As ever, much, much more about this episode – including a contemporary map of Florence and images of the key characters - is to be found at our website tttpodcast.com.
Show notes
Scene One: February, Vespasiano da Bisticci begins work in the bookshop of Michele Guardini.
Scene Two: June Pope Eugenius IV arrives in the city having fled Rome in terror for his life.
Scene Three: Cosimo de’Medici returns to Florence after a year-long exile in Venice.
Memento: The manuscript copy of Cicero’s Letters to Friends produced in Vespasiano’s workshop for the Hungarian scholar Janus Pannonius.
People/Social
Presenter: Violet Moller
Guest: Ross King
Production: Maria Nolan
Podcast partner: Colorgraph
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James McAuley: The House of Fragile Things (1942)

The Fall of France in the summer of 1940 upended many lives. One of those who lost their status and safety was the wealthy Jewish heiress, Béatrice de Camondo.
In this episode James McAuley tells Béatrice's tragic story, a story that ultimately ended with her deportation east to Auschwitz. Along the way he explains the early twentieth century world that Béatrice came from: a world of art, style and grace.
Looking back at the art collections that once belonged to Jewish families like the de Camondo, McAuley questions the meaning of them. What were these collections for? What do they tell us about the people that assembled them now that they have gone? 
As ever, much, much more about this episode – including a fascinating colourised image of Nissim de Camondo, Béatrice's elder brother - is to be found at our website tttpodcast.com.
James McAuley is the Paris Correspondent of the Washington Post. His debut book, The House of Fragile Things, is newly published by Yale University Press.
Show Notes
Scene One: 16 July, 1942. Paris. The Vel d’Hiv roundup of Parisian Jews.
Scene Two: 5 September, 1942. The forest of Ermonville. Béatrice de Camondo writes a letter to a childhood friend.
Scene Three: The night of December 5, 1942. Neuilly-sur-Seine. Béatrice de Camondo arrested with her daughter, Fanny.
Memento: The library of Theodore Reinach at the Villa Kerylos, ransacked by the Gestapo during the War.
People/Social
Presenter: Peter Moore
Guest: James McAuley
Reading: Nadia Fontaine
Producer: Maria Nolan
Titles: Jon O
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Simon Scarrow: Blackout Berlin (1939)

In Berlin the winter of 1939/40 was bitterly cold. People were full of anxiety for what the future held. In this episode the Number One Bestselling novelist Simon Scarrow takes us on a fascinating walking tour of the Nazi capital to see three of its most revealing buildings.
We have two hardback copies of Simon Scarrow’s Blackout to give away to our listeners. All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning one of these is "like" our Facebook page. (deadline Sun 28 March 2021 - winner notified by message)
As ever, much, much more about this episode – including a period map of Berlin that shows the three locations, and a range of contemporary photographs - is to be found at our website tttpodcast.com
Show notes
Scene One: Anhalter station – December 1939 – Dusk
Scene Two: Reich Main Security Office – December - Day
Scene Three: Hotel Adlon -December - Evening
Memento: A propaganda poster
People/Social
Presenter: Peter Moore
Guest: Simon Scarrow
Producers: Maria Nolan
Titles: Jon O
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Shrabani Basu: Arthur Conan Doyle’s Crusade (1907)

Few crimes can be said to be as sinister and perplexing as the ‘Mystery of the Parsee Lawyer.’ In this episode the journalist and Sunday Times bestselling author, Shrabani Basu, takes us back to the dramatic plot of a crime that captivated Edwardian Britain and involved the creator of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
To WIN a hardback copy of Shrabani Basu's The Mystery of the Parsee Lawyer, all you have to do is "like" our Facebook page. (deadline Sun 21 March 2021 - winner notified by message)
As ever, much, much more about this episode - including photographs of the Edaljis, a colourised image of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and a map of the location of Great Wyrley - is to be found at our website tttpodcast.com
Show notes
Scene One: January 1907: Arthur Conan Doyle makes a trip to Great Wyrley and visits the scene of crime. He visits the vicarage, the locals and his last stop is at the house of Captain Anson.
Scene Two: Shortly after. George Edalji gets a free pardon after ACD's piece is published in the Daily Telegraph. But he is not given any compensation, which leaves ACD incensed. He decides to reveal the true identity of the Wyrley Ripper. The game is afoot.
Scene Three: September 1907. ACD is on his honeymoon. A crucial lead comes through. He feels he has solved the mystery and has the final proof. But does he?
Memento: George Edjali’s coat.
People/Social
Presenter: Peter Moore
Guest: Shrabani Basu
Producers: Maria Nolan
Titles: Jon O
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