Episode description

George Eliot was a leading novelist who scandalised Victorian society by eloping to Germany with a married man and living in unlawful conjugal bliss. She dedicated her books to ‘her husband’ and wrote of 'this double life, which helps me to feel and think with double strength'. The philosopher and writer Clare Carlisle has written a new biography of George Eliot which places The Marriage Question at the centre of her art and life.

The playwright David Eldridge is writing a trilogy of plays about relationships. Beginning, which premiered in 2017, and Middle, from last year, take place overnight in one uninterrupted scene as the couples share their thoughts and feelings on love and loneliness. The final play will be called End.

The prize winning poet Claudia Rankine talks about her collection Plot, published in full for the first time in the UK. In a series of conversations, reflections and dreams Rankine reveals the hopes and fears of Liv and Erland – a couple navigating the birth of their new baby.

Producer: Katy Hickman