Writers voices from British Library archive

The British Library has released two new additions to its series of literary spoken word CDs, featuring many previously unpublished recordings of great British and American writers.

The Spoken Word: British Writers and The Spoken Word: American Writers together form the largest survey of historic recordings by English-language authors and playwrights ever published...

Stand-out tracks include:

* The sole surviving recording of Virginia Woolf published in its entirety for the first time

* The sole audio recording of Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes

* P.G. Wodehouse talks about his most famous characters, Jeeves and Wooster

* J.R.R. Tolkien discussing whether he will be remembered for The Lord of the Rings or his academic career

* Noel Coward throwing off witticisms when interviewed at 6 a.m. at Heathrow airport

* Anthony Burgess interviewed as Stanley Kubrick's controversial film of A Clockwork Orange was released

* Harold Pinter speaks to Kenneth Tynan, a meeting of two leading men of the theatre

* Graham Greene talks about playing Russian roulette as a boy

* Joe Orton interviewed a week before he was murdered, observing tragically that a playwright's career is 'very short'

* Ian Fleming's appearance on BBC Radio 4's 'Desert Island Discs'

BBC News has the Virginia Woolf recording online.