The Patricia Highsmith BBC Radio Collection
Patricia Highsmith, Ian Hart (Read by), Anton Lesser (Read by), Michael Sheen (Read by), Saskia Reeves (Read by), Bill Nighy (Read by), Adrian Lester (Read by), Zoë Wanamaker (Read by), Mark Billingham (Read by), Full Cast (Read by), John Sharian (Read by)

The Patricia Highsmith BBC Radio Collection

The Talented Mr Ripley, Strangers on a Train, Carol & other stories

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Summary

The definitive collection of dramatisations and readings of Patricia Highsmith's finest fiction - plus bonus material

A master of the psychological crime genre, Patricia Highsmith is most famous for her quintet of bestselling 'Ripley' novels, and her groundbreaking thriller Strangers on a Train (notably adapted as a classic film by Alfred Hitchcock). This extensive collection encompasses her best-known works, as well as selected short stories and three programmes about the author herself and her greatest creation, charismatic anti-hero Tom Ripley.

Included is a series of five plays charting Ripley's journey from smalltime conman to cool, calculated killer. Comprising The Talented Mr Ripley, Ripley Under Ground, Ripley's Game, The Boy Who Followed Ripley and Ripley Under Water, The Complete Ripley stars Ian Hart as Tom.

Also featured are dramatisations of Strangers on a Train (starring Anton Lesser, Michael Sheen, Saskia Reeves and Bill Nighy); Patricia Highsmith's compelling tale of obsession, The Cry of the Owl (starring John Sharian, Adrian Lester and Joanne McQuinn); and the dark, intriguing domestic noir A Suspension of Mercy (starring Stuart Milligan and Janet Maw).

Highsmith's tender, unsettling lesbian love story Carol is abridged and read in 10 parts by Zoë Wanamaker, and there are abridged readings of her short stories 'A Dangerous Hobby', 'Variations on a Game' (both read by Campbell Scott), and 'The Trouble with Mrs Blynn, the Trouble with the World' (read by Anna Massey). Five more unabridged stories, 'The Cries of Love', 'The Snail-Watcher', 'The Breeder', 'Notes from a Respectable Cockroach' and 'Goat Ride', are read by Helen Horton, John Webb, Garrick Hagon, William Hootkins and Crawford Logan.

In Looking for Ripley, crime writer Mark Billingham unravels the mystery behind our lasting fascination with Tom Ripley, while in A Passionate Affair, Marcel Berlins asks if his creator Patricia Highsmith also fell under his spell. And in Desert Island Discs, the author shares the soundtrack of her life with presenter Roy Plomley.

Contents
The Talented Mr Ripley
Ripley Under Ground
Ripley's Game
The Boy Who Followed Ripley
Ripley Under Water
Strangers on a Train
The Cry of the Owl
A Suspension of Mercy
Carol
A Dangerous Hobby
Variations on a Game
The Trouble with Mrs Blynn, The Trouble with the World
The Cries of Love
The Snail-Watcher
The Breeder
Notes from a Respectable Cockroach
Goat Ride
Looking for Ripley
A Passionate Affair
Desert Island Discs: Patricia Highsmith

Original texts © 1993 by Diogenes Verlag AG Zurich, all rights reserved.
© 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd
(p) 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

About the author

Patricia Highsmith

Patricia Highsmith was born Mary Patricia Plangman in Fort Worth, Texas. Her parents divorced 10 days after her birth on 19 January 1921, and her mother married her stepfather Stanley Highsmith in 1924 and moved to New York three years later. Their relationship was stormy, and Patricia later described her childhood as 'a little hell'.

Highsmith was taught to read by her grandmother at the age of two: the beginning of her lifelong love for books. She studied English at Barnard's College in 1942, and after graduation, took a sales job at Bloomingdale's department store while freelancing as a comic book writer.

In 1949, she travelled to Europe, where she eventually settled. Her first novel, Strangers on a Train, was published in 1950, and made into a film by Alfred Hitchcock the following year. Her next book, written under the pseudonym Claire Morgan, was the lesbian love story The Price of Salt (1952), inspired by an encounter with a glamorous blonde in a mink coat during her shop assistant days. In 1955 came The Talented Mr Ripley. Featuring her own favourite character, a charming, amoral psychopath who gets away with murder, the book was a hit with the public and critics alike, and was awarded the Edgar Allan Poe Scroll by the Mystery Writers of America in 1957. It was followed by Ripley Under Ground (1970), Ripley's Game (1974), The Boy Who Followed Ripley (1980), and Ripley Under Water (1991) - collectively known as the Ripliad.

Among her other novels were The Cry of the Owl (1962) and A Suspension of Mercy (1965), and she also wrote several collections of short stories including Little Tales of Misogyny (1975) and Tales of Natural and Unnatural Catastrophes (1987). Patricia Highsmith died in Locarno, Switzerland, on 4 February 1995. Her final novel, Small g: a Summer Idyll, was published posthumously the same year.
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More from this Author

The Complete Ripley: The Tom Ripley thrillersPatricia Highsmith
Strangers on a TrainPatricia Highsmith

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