Oxford DNB podcast

Welcome to the Oxford DNB podcast, chosen by iTunes in 2007 as one of the best new podcasts. From this page you can listen to a selection of Oxford DNB biographies, either by downloading the individual life or by subscribing to our fortnightly podcast.

We now have more than 70 episodes freely available, from Boudicca to Bobby Moore. Each epiosde lasts between 10 and 20 minutes. Find out who's featured so far.

Current podcast: Charles Blondin

• Subscribe to our podcast:
  
  

  If you have iTunes: subscribe on the iTunes page for this podcast

  On any reader: use its subscribe feature to add our URL: http://www.oxforddnb.com/public/podcast.xml

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• Or download individual biographies: find out what's available.

• We've also produced a map: click here to see if we have recorded the biography of anyone from your area.

More about the Oxford DNB podcast

A podcast is like a series on the radio, except it is broadcast through the internet, and you can listen to the episodes whenever you like, because your computer can automatically record each episode for you.

Before you start, you'll need to download a feed reader. (If you already subscribe to our web feed you already have a reader.) For podcasts, iTunes and Juice are both popular and free. (Sorry, we can't recommend or advise on readers.)

• Then, use your reader's Subscribe function (or this link in iTunes) to add our feed's URL:
  
  
  • Either by copying and pasting it into your reader: http://www.oxforddnb.com/public/podcast.xml.
  
  
  
  • Or by navigating to the page and then adding it: http://www.oxforddnb.com/public/podcast.xml

Once you've subscribed, you'll receive each biography as an mp3 file, for you to listen to on your computer or transfer to your ipod or mp3 player.

• Cancelling a podcast that you no longer want to listen to is even easier. Simply select the feed in your reader and use the unsubscribe function.

• If you're bemused, the BBC has a friendly introduction to podcasts.

You can also download the biographies separately. Every biography available is listed below—individual episodes last between 10 and 20 minutes. Simply click on the link to listen immediately, or save to your computer (usually by clicking with the right-hand mouse button, and choosing to save) so that you can listen later, or copy the file to your mp3 player.

Don't forget: you can read these and 57,000 other biographies — for free and at home — via nearly all UK public libraries and colleges and universities worldwide.

Current life

Charles Blondin >listen to or download Charles Blondin’s biography

Coming soon … not quite cricket … ?

1. Wartime lives

Flora MacDonald, Jacobite heroine who helped Bonnie Prince Charlie escape >listen to or download Flora MacDonald’s biography

Edward Harrison, army officer and inventor of the gas mask >listen to or download Edward Harrison’s biography

Lord Haw-Haw, fascist and propaganda broadcaster >listen to or download Lord Haw-Haw’s biography

John Simpson Kirkpatrick, war hero at Gallipoli, known as the ‘Man with the Donkey’ >listen to or download John Simpson Kirkpatrick’s biography

The Unknown Warrior, the First World War soldier buried at Westminster Abbey >listen to or download the biography of The Unknown Warrior

John Travers Cornwell, boy naval hero and Victoria Cross holder (1916) >listen to or download John Travers Cornwell’s biography

Edith Cavell, nurse and First World War war heroine >listen to or download Edith Cavell’s biography

2. Criminal lives

Friar Tuck, legendary outlaw and one of Robin Hood’s ‘Merrie Men’ >listen to or download Friar Tuck’s biography

Harold Davidson, Church of England clergyman and circus performer >listen to or download Harold Davidson’s biography

Bogo de Clare, medieval churchman and figure of scandal >listen to or download Bogo de Clare’s biography

Dr Crippen, murderer >listen to or download Dr Crippen’s biography

Princess Caraboo, nineteenth-century impostor >listen to or download Princess Caraboo’s biography

Alan May, physicist and Soviet spy > listen to or download Alan May’s biography

3. Stage and screen

Cary Grant, actor >listen to or download Cary Grant’s biography

Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise, comedians and popular entertainers >listen to or download the Morecambe and Wise podcast

Alistair Cooke, broadcaster and writer >listen to or download Alistair Cooke’s biography

Aldwyn Roberts, calypso singer >listen to or download Aldwyn Roberts’s biography

Fanny Cradock, television chef >listen to or download Fanny Cradock’s biography

Jacqueline Du , cellist >listen to or download Jacqueline Du Pré’s biography

Jimi Hendrix, rock musician >listen to or download Jimi Hendrix’s biography

George Harrison, musician and composer, of the Beatles >listen to or download George Harrison’s biography

Madame Tussaud, founder of London’s waxworks exhibition >listen to or download Madame Tussaud’s biography

Maurice Gibb, singer and songwriter, of the Bee Gees > listen to or download Maurice Gibb’s biography

Thora Hird, actress > listen to or download Thora Hird’s biography

Eric Thompson, actor and creator of the Magic Roundabout >listen to or download Eric Thompson’s biography

Lotte Berk, dancer and fitness trainer > listen to or download Lotte Berk’s biography

4. Literary lives

James Murray, first editor of the Oxford English Dictionary >listen to or download James Murray’s biography

Ian Fleming, writer and creator of James Bond >listen to or download Ian Fleming’s biography

Alice Liddell, prototype of the character Alice (in Wonderland) >listen to or download Alice Liddell’s biography

Mills and Boon, romantic publishers >listen to or download the Mills and Boon podcast

Roger Hargreaves, children’s author and creator of the Mr Men and Little Miss books >listen to or download Roger Hargreaves’s biography

Helene Hanff, writer and Anglophile in the USA (84 Charing Cross Road) >listen to or download Helene Hanff’s biography

Dee Wells, journalist > listen to or download Dee Wells’s biography

Barbara Cartland, romantic novelist> listen to or download Barbara Cartland’s biography

Vita Sackville-West, writer and gardener >listen to or download Vita Sackville-West’s biography

Roald Dahl, writer >listen to or download Roald Dahl’s biography

5. Political lives

Sir Gordon Reece, public relations consultant who created Mrs Thatcher’s image >listen to or download Sir Gordon Reece’s biography

Paul Robeson, US actor, singer, and political activist >listen to or download Paul Robeson’s biography

Denis Thatcher, prime ministerial consort > listen to or download Denis Thatcher’s biography

Mo Mowlam, New Labour politician >listen to or download Mo Mowlam’s biography

6. Science and invention

William Bowler, hatter and inventor of the bowler hat >listen to or download William Bowler’s biography

George Bennie, inventor of the railplane >listen to or download George Bennie’s biography

Forrest Mars, the man behind the Mars Bar> listen to or download Forrest Mars’s biography

Anne Darwin, daughter of Charles Darwin and subject of experiments into human behaviour >listen to or download Anne Darwin’s biography

Charles Macintosh, inventor of mackintosh waterproof fabrics >listen to or download Charles Macintosh’s biography

Percy Shaw, inventor of cats-eye road studs >listen to or download Percy Shaw’s biography

Charles Isham, bringer of garden gnomes to England > listen to or download Charles Ishams’s biography

John Logie Baird, inventor of television >listen to or download John Logie Baird’s biography

7. Explorers and pioneers

Captain Oates, Antarctic explorer on Scott’s 1912 expedition >listen to or download Captain Oates’s biography

Constance Markievicz, Irish republican and first woman elected to UK parliament >listen to or download Constance Markievicz’s biography

Victoria Woodhull, women's rights campaigner and first female presidential candidate in the United States of America >listen to or download Victoria Woodhull’s biography

Phyllis Pearsall, map publisher and creator of the London A to Z >listen to or download Phyllis Pearsall’s biography

Pocahontas, Algonquian Indian princess >listen to or download Pocahontas’s biography

Deen Mahomed, nineteenth-century founder of Britain’s first curry house >listen to or download Deen Mahomed’s biography

Amy Johnson, international aviator >listen to or download Amy Johnson’s biography

Fanny Coker, freed slave commemorated in Bristol >listen to or download Fanny Coker’s biography

Lola Montez, adventuress in Latin America >listen to or download Lola Montez’s biography

Pasqua Rosee, founder of London’s first coffee-house, 1656 >listen to or download Pasqua Rosee’s biography

8. Sporting lives

Matthew Webb, first person to swim the English Channel >listen to or download Matthew Webb’s biography

Robert Dover, organizer of the Cotswold Olimpick games from 1612 >listen to or download Robert Dover’s biography

The Busby Babes, Manchester United footballers and victims of the Munich air crash >listen to or download the Busby Babes podcast

Fred Perry, tennis player >listen to or download Fred Perry’s biography

Bobby Moore, footballer and captain of England, 1966> listen to or download Bobby Moore’s biography

Barry Sheene, racing motorcyclist > listen to or download Barry Sheene’s biography

9. One-offs

Edward Smith, captain of the Titanic >listen to or download Edward Smith’s biography

Nellie Boxall, cook and servant to Virginia Woolf >listen to or download Nellie Boxall’s biography

Francis Bacon, painter >listen to or download Francis Bacon’s biography

Billy Butlin, fairground proprietor and founder of holiday camps >listen to or download Billy Butlin’s biography

Elizabeth Pepys, wife of diarist Samuel Pepys >listen to or download Elizabeth Pepys’s biography

Boudicca, queen of the Iceni >listen to or download Boudicca’s biography

Thomas Parr, seventeenth-century centenarian, known as Old Parr >listen to or download Thomas Parr’s biography

Bunny Roger, couturier, socialite, and man of fashion >listen to or download Bunny Roger’s biography

Sidney Bloom, London restaurateur >listen to or download Sidney Bloom’s biography

10. Mystery and fictitious lives

Piltdown Man, archaeological hoax >listen to or download the Piltdown Man podcast

Spring-Heeled Jack, nineteenth-century mystery assailant >listen to or download the Spring-Heeled Jack podcast

Lindow Man, archaeological discovery, known as the ‘Body in the Bog’ >listen to or download the Lindow Man podcast

John Bull, fictitious epitomist of Englishness and British imperialism >listen to or download John Bull’s biography

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Our podcast is an experiment. Comments? Please email us: epm-oxforddnb@oup.com

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