From the series "The Modern World: Ten Great Writers", this playful documentary introduces James Joyce's most famous work "Ulysses". It includes fantastic adaptations to film from passages of the novel. It also includes excerpts from a book written by Joyce's friend, the artist Frank Budgen, entitled "James Joyce and the making of Ulysses". Amongst those interviewed is author Anthony Burgess.

Withdrawing from the glittering high society he had so avidly courted, Marcel Proust spent the last decade of his life in virtual isolation, writing and revising Remembrance of Things Past. This program focuses on an intriguing dramatization of part seven of Proust’s magnum opus, in which narrator Marcel attends a reception for the new Princesse de Guermantes and discovers his life’s true vocation in the process. Professor Michel Butor, of Geneva University, and translator Terence Kilmartin add keen insights into the novel’s philosophical exploration of time, memory, and individual creativity.

This program, narrated by Ibsen biographer Michael Meyer, charts the development of Henrik Ibsen’s style over four periods: his early years of failure; his epic dramas; his sociological plays, such as A Doll’s House, Ghosts, and Rosmersholm; and his final plays, including Hedda Gabler, The Master Builder, and Little Eyolf, in which he dealt with the dark interior of the human soul. Televised productions and theater excerpts showcase Ibsen’s works, while writers John Mortimer and D. M. Thomas and psychologist Anthony Storr consider their complexity and treatment of daring themes such as women’s rights, venereal disease, and parental responsibility.

In 1925 Luigi Pirandello brought his troupe to England as part of a worldwide tour. This program re-creates one day in London as “The Einstein of the Theater” watches his plays and, away from the footlights, confronts the paradoxical nature of his life. Portions of Six Characters in Search of an Author; Henry IV; Right You Are, If You Think You Are; and The Rules of the Game are meticulously staged, using actors’ accounts, period descriptions, and Pirandello’s own comments. Plus, biographical notes written by Pirandello himself provide a new angle on the inner torment that animates his work, while playwright Julian Mitchell and novelist Leonardo Sciascia critically analyze the action as it unfolds.