Spanning the years 1865 to 1890, The American West will show how -- in the aftermath of the Civil War -- the United States transforms into the "land of opportunity". Viewers will be transported into the violent world of cowboys, Indians, outlaws and law men. The 8-episode limited event series chronicles the personal, little-known stories of Western legends such as Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull. The series features exclusive interviews with notable names from classic Western films, including Robert Redford, James Caan, Burt Reynolds, Tom Selleck, Kiefer Sutherland, Mark Harmon, Ed Harris and more.

When farmer Evan's mare has a fine son, he promises the black stallion to his son Joe. The youngster enjoy growing up as playmates. Alas, once the good squire is buried, his mean heir, who abuses animals, turns the screws on till pa Evans is forced to leave and abandon even Black Beauty. He soon loses everything in a cards game, so the stallion ends up in the Hackenschmidt circus. Joe is desperate to get him back.

Jane Eyre is an orphan cast out as a young girl by her aunt, Mrs. Reed, and sent to be raised in a harsh charity school for girls. There she learns to become a teacher and eventually seeks employment outside the school. Her advertisement is answered by the housekeeper of Thornfield Hall, Mrs. Fairfax.

Based on real events, Mercy Street takes viewers beyond the battlefield and into the lives of Americans on the Civil War home front as they face the unprecedented challenges of one of the most turbulent times in our nation's history.Set in Virginia in the spring of 1862, the series follows the lives of two volunteer nurses on opposite sides of the conflict; Mary Phinney, a staunch New England abolitionist, and Emma Green, a naive young Confederate belle. The two collide at Mansion House, the Green family's luxury hotel that has been taken over and transformed into a Union Army Hospital in Alexandria, a border town between North and South and the longest-occupied Confederate city of the war. Ruled under martial law, Alexandria is now the melting pot of the region, filled with soldiers, civilians, female volunteers, doctors, wounded fighting men from both sides, runaway slaves, prostitutes, speculators and spies.The intersection of North and South within the confines of a small occupied town creates a rich world that is chaotic, conflicted, corrupt, dynamic and even hopeful — a cauldron within which these characters strive, fight, love, laugh, betray, sacrifice and, at times, act like scoundrels. This series is not about battles and glory, it's about the drama and unexpected humor of everyday life behind the front lines. It's a fresh twist on an iconic story, one that resonates with larger themes we still struggle with today.

Comedy following the progress of four young medical pioneers in the daring and wild days of Victorian medicine.

A pair of literary sleuths unearth the amorous secret of two Victorian poets only to find themselves falling under a passionate spell.

A scheming servant works for a wealthy couple in France during the late 19th century.

In 1897, the Connolly brothers – recent immigrants from Ireland – dream of striking it rich in the Wild West. When news reaches them of a fortune in the Yukon, youngest brother Séamus heads north to the town of Dominion, leaving Tom and Pádraig no choice but to follow their wayward sibling.

Life and events of the man who realized one of the most important discoveries of the 19th century: Altamira's caves.

A twisted new take on the Frankenstein legend - and the madness that surrounds it.

In 1870, a Jamaican colonial family sends its children to Britain for proper schooling but their ship is taken over by pirates who become fond of the kids.

Southern Italy, two years after the Unification of Italy: a woman, forced to escape from her village, joins a particular group of brigands and she will become one of the most ruthless and strategic leaders. But she is not the only one to choose this life and soon comes into contact with other women like her. In order to recover the gold of the South and restore hope to the peasants, the various bands of brigands will have no choice but to unite against the common enemy. Brigands against State, but also brigands against brigands, in a struggle where one must be willing to sacrifice even one's humanity to overcome the oppressors. Dense forests, immense glades and desolate landscapes create a precise image system in which the characters come into intimate contact with the wilderness, becoming an integral part of it. Confined to the edges of civilization and forced to live like beasts to survive in hostile places, this environment changes them forever and brings out their darker, more primitive side. A little bit Robin Hood, a little bit Pirates, the bandits protagonists acquire wealth and power to replace the State. A violent criminality is born where the only option to survive is to become an unscrupulous outlaw.

The first same-sex marriage in Spain to take place after the Roman Imperial era occurred on 8 June 1901. Two women, Marcela Gracia Ibeas and Elisa Sanchez Loriga, attempted to get married in A Coruña (Galicia, Spain). 1885. They meet at the school where they both study. What begins as a close friendship ends in a romantic relationship that they must keep secret. Marcela's parents are suspicious and send her abroad for a couple of years. When she returns, the reunion with Elisa is magical and they decide to share a life together. Now the focus of social pressure and gossip, they decide to map out a plan. Elisa will leave town for a time in order to come back disguised as Mario and be able to marry Marcela. But nothing will be that easy for this forbidden love.

A hapless loser sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for seven wishes, but has trouble winning over the girl of his dreams.

Comanche Moon, the prequel to McMurtry's bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "Lonesome Dove follows Texas Rangers Augustus "Gus" McCrae (Zahn) and Woodrow F. Call (Urban), now in their middle years, as they continue to deal with the ever-increasing tensions of adult life--Gus with his great love, Clara Forsythe (Cardellini), and Call with Maggie Tilton (Banks), the young prostitute who loves him and bears him his son, Newt (Joseph Castanon). Kilmer plays Captain Inish Scull, a Yankee aristocrat and hero of the recently concluded Mexican War. Griffiths plays Inez Scull, the Captain's sexy wife who doesn't hesitate to fill her time with other men when he's away from home. Wes Studi plays Comanche Chief Buffalo Hump.

Jedrington teams up with a seemingly charming new business partner, Harmswell Grimstone. As the Secret-Past family's fortunes rise, it looks like they are built on crumbling foundations indeed, especially when it is revealed that Conceptiva too has a secret that turns out to be even darker than Jedrington's own.

The truth of how Mortimer Granville devised the invention of the first vibrator in the name of medical science.

On Guy Fawkes Day 1892m Oscar Wilde goes to a performance of his controversial, banned play 'Salome'. The 'theatre' is a brothel and the performers are prostitutes.

In 19th century England, young Mary Grant and her brother, Robert, embark on a dangerous quest to find their missing father, a sea captain who vanished somewhere along the Chilean coast.

A young governess for two children becomes convinced that the house and grounds are haunted.

In Victorian England, a master criminal makes elaborate plans to steal a shipment of gold from a moving train.

An old bitter miser is given a chance for redemption when he is haunted by ghosts on Christmas Eve.

Three students and a school teacher disappear on an excursion to Hanging Rock, in Victoria, on Valentine's Day, 1900. The movie follows those that disappeared, and those that stayed behind, but it delights in the asking of questions, not the answering of them. Even though both the movie and the book it was based on claim to be inspired by real events, the story is completely fictional.

The daughter of a country doctor copes with an unwanted stepmother, an impetuous stepsister, burdensome secrets, the town gossips, and the tug on her own heartstrings for a man who thinks of her only as a friend.

Middlemarch was a 1994 television adaptation of the 1871 novel of the same name by George Eliot & was produced by the BBC in seven episodes.Dorothea Brooke attempts to satisfy her underdeveloped intellect through marriage to the Reverend Edward Casaubon, a man twice her age. The marriage proves unsatisfying and ends with Casaubon's unexpected death. Dorothea eventually meets Will Ladislaw, an event which leads to further complications.

In the mid 19th century, Emily Dickinson was writing prolifically and in a passionate romantic relationship with her sister-in-law, yet she is still popularly believed to be a fridge recluse. Informed by Dickenson's private letters, this film is a light-hearted, humorous and bold take on the American poet who found herself facing male literacy gatekeepers too confused by her genius to take her work seriously, and instead attracts the attention of an ambitious female editor, named Mabel, who also sees Emily as a convenient cover for her bizarre love triangle.

A series of events change the orphaned Pip's life forever as he eagerly abandons his humble origins to begin a new life as a gentleman.

December 1897, Paris. Edmond Rostand is not yet thirty but already two children and a lot of anxieties. He has not written anything for two years. In desperation, he offers the great Constant Coquelin a new play, a heroic comedy, in verse, for the holidays. Only concern: it is not written yet. Ignoring the whims of actresses, the demands of his Corsican producers, the jealousy of his wife, the stories of his best friend's heart and the lack of enthusiasm of all those around him, Edmond starts writing this piece which nobody believes. For now, he has only the title: "Cyrano de Bergerac".

A group of Confederate soldiers hole up in an abandoned plantation after robbing a bank and find themselves at the mercy of supernatural forces.

An American girl inherits a fortune and falls into a misguided relationship with a gentleman confidence artist whose true nature, including a barbed and covetous disposition, turns her life into a nightmare.

Young Jim Craig returns to his home in the Australian high country. He finds that things are not as he left them - his girlfriend is being pursued by another man, and her father doesn't want Jim back into her life.

A shipping disaster in the nineteenth century has stranded a man and woman in the wilds of Africa. The lady is pregnant, and gives birth to a son in their tree house. The mother dies soon afterwards. An ape enters the house and kills the father, and a female ape takes the tiny boy as a replacement for her own dead infant, and raises him as her son. Twenty years later, Captaine Phillippe D'Arnot discovers the man who thinks he is an ape. Evidence in the tree house leads him to believe that he is the direct descendant of the Earl of Greystoke, and thus takes it upon himself to return the man to civilization.

Catherine Sloper (Jennifer Jason Leigh) has found the man of her dreams in Morris Townsend (Ben Chaplin), but her plans to marry him are strongly opposed by her father, Dr. Austin Sloper (Albert Finney), who believes Townsend is only interested in his daughter for her money. But Catherine is determined to follow her heart, even if she loses her inheritance in the process. But just what are Townsend's intentions?

A BBC adaptation of the Victorian "penny dreadful" tale of 18th century "demon barber" Sweeney Todd, of Fleet Street, who cuts the throats of unsuspecting clients in his London shop.

The Victorian Kitchen Garden goes behind the walls of Chilton Foliat in Berkshire, where Harry Dodson carefully recreates a traditional Victorian Kitchen Garden. Using traditional tools Harry painstakingly transformed the weed-choked ground into a gardener's and cook's delight solving many horticultural mysteries along the way and showing how gardeners dealt with pests and how they grew exotic fruits and vegetables for the household all year round.

A stonemason steadfastly pursues a cousin he loves. However their love is troubled as he is married to a woman who tricked him into marriage and she is married to a man she does not love.

Jagna is a young woman determined to forge her own path in a late 19th century Polish village - a hotbed of gossip and on-going feuds, held together, rich and poor, by adherence to colorful traditions and deep-rooted patriarchy.

Madame Ranevsky (Dame Judi Dench) is a spoiled aging aristocratic lady, who returns from a trip to Paris to face the loss of her magnificent Cherry Orchard estate after a default on the mortgage. In denial, she continues living in the past, deluding herself and her family, while the beautiful cherry trees are being axed down by the re-possessor Lopakhin (Bill Paterson), her former serf, who has his own agenda.

A tempestuous love story between Victorian women, adapted from the novel by Sarah Waters. A naïve girl discovers both romance and pain in London.

A grieving upper class woman becomes a "Lady Visitor" at Millbank prison, hoping to escape her troubles and be a guiding figure in the lives of the female prisoners. Of all her friendships with prisoners, she is most fascinated by Selina - a medium. Set in the 1870s.

In 1860s Britain, a boy inventor finds himself caught in the middle of a deadly conflict over a revolutionary advance in steam power.

A young, compassionate man struggles to save his family and friends from the abusive exploitation of his cold-heartedly grasping uncle.

A story of a young girl who lives in the Swiss Alps with her goat herding Grandfather.

Set in the Yorkshire Dales in the 1870s, the drama will focus upon the shantytown of Jericho, home to a community that will live, thrive and die in the shadow of the viaduct they've been brought together to build. Rough, rustic and remote, yet with a wild west, carnival atmosphere, Jericho is a community of pioneers, settlers and outcasts, people with secrets to hide and those looking to start again.

When Isobel Hetherington and her three young daughters take up their seaside residence in the hot summer of 1887, life seems idyllic. But the arrival of Phillip Wilson Steer for his annual painting visit launches a chain of events that will change their lives forever. Overcome by his first sight of Isobel, Steer immediately decides to capture her on canvas - and as the painting grows, so does their love for each other. But jealousy and tragedy eventually force them to confront reality.

Vampire hunter Van Helsing returns to Transylvania to destroy handsome bloodsucker Baron Meinster, who has designs on beautiful young schoolteacher Marianne.

Charles Dickens' haunting semi-autobiographical tale of a boy who is sent away by his stepfather after his mother dies but manages to triumph over incredible adversities.

The sole survivor of a lost whaling ship relates the tale of his captain's self-destructive obsession to hunt the white whale, Moby Dick.

The story of Oscar Wilde, genius, poet, playwright and the First Modern Man. The self-realization of his homosexuality caused Wilde enormous torment as he juggled marriage, fatherhood and responsibility with his obsessive love for Lord Alfred Douglas, nicknamed Bosie. After legal action instigated by Bosie's father, the enraged Marquise of Queensberry, Wilde refused to flee the country and was sentenced to two years at hard labor by the courts of an intolerant Victorian society.

The story of Tess Durbeyfield, a low-born country girl whose family find they have noble connections.

In mid-1800s England, Oscar is a young Anglican priest, a misfit and an outcast, but with the soul of an angel. As a boy, even though from a strict Pentecostal family, he felt God told him through a sign to leave his father and his faith and join the Church of England. Lucinda is a teen-aged Australian heiress who has an almost desperate desire to liberate her sex from the confines of the male-dominated culture of the Australia of that time. She buys a glass factory and has a dream of building a church made almost entirely of glass, and then transporting it to Bellingen, a remote settlement on the north coast. Oscar and Lucinda meet on a ship going to Australia; once there, they are for different reasons ostracized from society, and as a result "join forces" together. Oscar and Lucinda are both passionate gamblers, and Lucinda bets Oscar her entire inheritance that he cannot transport the glass church to the Outback safely. Oscar accepts her wager, and this leads to the events that will change both their lives forever.

After her father gets killed in an automobile accident, Kristel Lodema discovers that her dad was investigating an old mine where convicted child killer Andries Martiens died back in 1857. Kristel decides to check out the mine along with a group of young adults. However, said mine turns out to be haunted by the dangerous and murderous spirit of Martiens.

A young Norwegian boy in 1850s England goes to work as a cabin boy and discovers some of his shipmates are actually pirates.

1864 After a huge battle and the brutal shelling of the population of Atlanta, Federal troops ("Yanks") take control of the city. Their plan is to use all of the goods remaining in the warehouse district of Atlanta to outfit their army for the upcoming March to the Sea, which they hope will end the War Between the States. Confederate spies move into the warehouse district, disguised as Yanks, to take stock of what is still there that might be of use to the army of the north. They find a lot. The word comes down from Confederate command to burn the entire district, destroying vast quantities of goods and uprooting hundreds of families that have been in the area for decades. "The Burning of Atlanta" is the story of the destruction of a major city near the end of the war, and the desperation and terror this causes in the lives of those who watch their entire society collapse around them.

Greed, betrayal and vengeance set the stage for this Sir Arthur Conan Doyle classic. Mary Morstan, a young governess, has been receiving a rare and lustrous pearl annually from an anonymous benefactor. This mysterious person now wants a meeting. Anxious and bewildered, Miss Morstan enlists Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson to escort her to this meeting. Together they go ...Read all

The story of a married silkworm merchant-turned-smuggler in 19th century France traveling to Japan for his town's supply of silkworms after a disease wipes out their African supply. During his stay in Japan, he becomes obsessed with the concubine of a local baron.

Weary of her very public life in Paris, an aging courtesan takes her orphaned niece from her convent home and relocates to Monte Carlo to begin a new life. Determined to bury the past, the courtesan Madame Bluet becomes the respectable Countess de Secret, and her niece Mistral, Mademoiselle Phantome. Soon, the secretive Countess and the beautiful Mlle. Phantome are the talk of Monte Carlo. Mistral finds herself surrounded by admirers - some with less than honorable intentions, while her aunt plots a long-awaited revenge. Will Mistral's chance for happiness be destroyed when her aunt's plot and past are revealed?

Henry Myers lives a hard life. After his latest heist goes wrong and his partners betray him and leave him for dead, Henry is surprised to find extraordinary kindness from a widow and her children. Soon he begins to question the choices he's made in his life. Just as things begin to make sense again, they take an interesting turn.

A daughter of the powerful Duke must show her courage and inventiveness to be with the man she loves.

A dramatization of the Battle of Isandlwana, where the British Army met its match against the Zulu nation.

In the middle of the 19th century, a boy and the girl who live in St. Petersburg, a rural village at the foot of the Mississippi River in the United States, begin an epic adventure.

A 13-year-old girl (played by The Golden Compass' Dakota Blue Richards) discovers that she is the only hope for banishing an ancient curse from a magical kingdom in director Gabor Csupo's adaptation of author Elizabeth Goudge's 1946 children's book The Little White Horse.

WEST AFRICA 1869 - Slave trade is illegal. There is a revolt on a slave ship - twenty four men fight for their lives. Out-gunned, the revolt fails but a second uprising is planned.

A documentary film about the English photographer Eadweard Muybridge.

In the 1800s a naturalist marries into a family of British country gentry.

Paris, 1830: Vidocq is killed by a mirror masked man. A thief turned investigator, he was working on a case of men killed by lightning. His biographer tries to solve the case.

In the 1830's in northern England, Riah Millican, a widow with three children, takes a job as housekeeper to a reclusive former teacher, Percival Miller. Miller makes Riah the gift of a black velvet gown, and even educates her children. But when Riah discovers the reason behind Miller's gifts, she vows to leave his house, but Miller has a hold on her, even after his death, when he leaves his house to her on the condition that she never marry. Riah's daughter, Biddy, grows up and becomes a laundress in a large house where her education keeps her from fitting in and makes her a target. But it also catches the eye of a son of the house, and with Miller's legacies, Biddy may yet find her way to happiness.

In the 1860's Wild West, when a ragged bunch of misfit settlers decide they cannot stand living in their current situation, they hire a grizzled cowboy to take them on a journey back to their hometowns east.

SAVANNAH is the true story of Ward Allen, a romantic and bombastic character who rejects his plantation heritage for the freedom of life on a river. Ward navigates the change of early 20th century America on the wrong side of the law and society, his loyal friend, a freed slave named Christmas Moultrie, at his side. Master of Shakespeare, and the shotgun that provides Savannah's markets with fowl, Ward fights for his rights as a hunter. His charisma and eloquent rhetoric win the heart of a society woman who defies her father to marry him. An elderly Moultrie tells the story of life on the river with his friend to a little boy, who passes the legendary Ward Allen down to the next generation.

Filmed live on stage at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood, CA, this is a not-to-be-missed high energy show starring Original Broadway cast members.

The rag-tag group of street kids known as the Irregulars first appeared in the Sherlock Holmes novel A Study in Scarlet in 1887. This time, the Irregulars find themselves having to solve the mysterious disappearance of two of their own gang, while Holmes himself is accused of murder and put under house arrest. Only by the combination of all their skills can they hope to free Holmes and the kidnap victims, solve the murders and prevent an audacious heist.

It's the late nineteenth century Austria. The Emperor Franz-Joseph and his son, the Crown Prince, Archduke Rudolf, have never seen eye to eye. While the Emperor retains the traditions of the empire in the rapidly changing world keeping it a police state, Rudolf is liberal, wanting to see the people have a say in what happens in their lives. Rudolf even rejected the Emperor's choice of a Spanish wife for him, he instead choosing Belgian Stephanie as his wife, that marriage which he himself never saw and will never see as anything more than a political alliance, Stephanie who he considers a shrew. While Rudolf has almost an unhealthy infatuation with his mother, the Empress Elizabeth, she has largely been an absent figure from Vienna and thus his life. As Franz-Joseph has had his steady mistress in Elizabeth's frequent absences, he has allowed Rudolf to have the same in the form of actress Mitzi Kaspar as the Emperor knows she could never be more than a dalliance and as she retains a certain balance within the royal house. Things change when Rudolf meets twenty year old Baroness Maria Vetsera. Their attraction begins as a clandestine affair which then grows into love which Rudolf increasingly flaunts in public in wanting always to be with her. This does not sit well with Franz-Joseph, his secret police who do whatever they need to retain the Emperor's natural order. As such, Rudolf tries to find options to make Maria his wife, one, with the help of his good friend, Edward, the Prince of Wales, to live as commoners in England, or two, to support the imminent and secret uprising in Hungary, they who want Rudolf as their King, which in realistic terms means an act of treason on Rudolf's part against his father.

Ancient mysteries. Powerful evil. And a fearless hero's quest through a fantastical realm of steam-powered wonders and sinister magic...

This film is based on true events that happened on Achill Island off the West coast of Ireland, in The Valley House.

Bored in her marriage to a country doctor and stifled by life in a small town, the restless Emma Bovary pursues her dreams of passion and excitement, whatever they may cost.

This is a story based on fact that follows a husband and wife who emigrate from Scotland to Wisconsin in the 1850's. They work very hard and become welcome citizens of their new town, Eureka. They have six children. They prosper in the husband's boat building business. But when their eldest is 12, tragedy strikes the family, and the 12-year old is burdened with a terrible task which he handles as well as any adult could.

Follows the adventures of bush ranger Joe Brady as he attempts to evade the authorities with his partner in crime Jessica Johnson.

A television remake of William Gibson's classic play about Annie Sullivan's efforts to draw Helen Keller from her world of darkness, blindness, deafness and silence.

A young, compassionate man struggles to save his family and friends from the abusive exploitation of his cold-hearted, grasping uncle.

In Nebraska, in pioneer days, a woman who knows she is going to die asks a prostitute to replace her with her husband and four children in order to make it possible for them to keep their family farm.

A Union soldier on his way home runs afoul of Jim Vance and his nephew Ellison Hatfield. Confederate sympathizers, they're furious with the idea of one of their neighbors fighting for the Union.

In this lighthearted romance from Victorian novelist Thomas Hardy, the beautiful new village school teacher is pursued by three suitors: a working-class man, a landowner, and the vicar.

A landlady suspects that her new lodger is Jack the Ripper.

The parallel paths of the lives, careers and passionate friendship of post-impressionist painter Paul Cezanne and novelist Emile Zola. Both left their hometown to conquer the art scene in Paris.

A young civil war veteran is forced on a desperate journey to save his kidnapped wife.

In a small French colony, a drunken man kills someone. While a guillotine is being shipped in, he changes, becoming a good and popular man.

A drunken Sherlock Holmes is really just a cover for the real detective, Dr. Watson.

The story of Adèle Hugo's unrequited love for a lieutenant.

Tullio Hermil is a chauvinist aristocrat who flaunts his mistress to his wife, but when he believes she has been unfaithful he becomes enamored of her again.

London 1895: Cabinet minister, Sir Chiltern, and bachelor, Lord Goring, are victims of scheming women.

Inspired by true stories, a lighthouse keeper's wife struggles with her work and her sanity as she cares for her sick husband in 19th century Maine.

A fictional account of one year in the life of Empress Elisabeth Of Austria. On Christmas Eve 1877, Elisabeth, once idolized for her beauty, turns 40 and is officially deemed an old woman; she starts trying to maintain her public image.

A BBC six-part drama following the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood - the men who blew the art world apart

A chronicle of the Brontë sisters' battle to overcome obstacles and publish their novels, which would become some of the greatest in the English language.

South African wilderness 1800's. Five years after their mother's death, preadolescent Rachel and 5-year-old Jamie find themselves on their way to the virgin gold fields with their father Herman as he tries to start a new life. When Jamie goes missing in a freak blizzard, Rachel braves the snowstorm to search for her little brother in the 19th-century South-African wilderness.

A psychological drama about the turn-of-the-century photographer Eadweard Muybridge, who was the first to photograph subjects in movement and became the godfather of cinema. He later murdered his wife's lover and was the last British-American to receive the justifiable homicide verdict.

What happens when a world-renowned scientist, crushed by the loss of his eldest daughter, formulates a theory in conflict with religious dogma? This is the story of Charles Darwin and his master-work "The Origin of Species". It tells of a global revolution played out within the confines of a small English village; a passionate marriage torn apart by the most dangerous idea in history; and a theory saved from extinction by the logic of a child.

An eight-hour miniseries based on Alexandra Ripley's novel, Scarlett, the sequel to Gone with the Wind. Scarlett O'Hara travels to Ireland to be with family and escape the confusion of her rocky marriage to Rhett Butler.

Porterhouse Blue is a Channel 4 drama based on the novel by Tom Sharpe. It tells the story of Skullion, the Head Porter of a fictional Cambridge college, Porterhouse.For more than 500 years, Porterhouse College has cherished tradition above all else. Unfortunately, its traditions mostly involve decadent banquets, drunkenness, and undistinguished scholarship. Enter Sir Godber Evans, a new master hell-bent on reform. Of course, the dinosaurs on the faculty resist him at every turn. But Head Porter Skullion emerges as Sir Godber's most formidable foe, a self-appointed guardian of Porterhouse's most hallowed traditions, with plenty of tricks up his tweedy sleeve.

In 1858 France, Bernadette, an adolescent peasant girl, has a vision of "a beautiful lady" in the city dump. She never claims it to be anything other than this, but the townspeople all assume it to be the virgin Mary. The pompous government officials think she is nuts, and do their best to suppress the girl and her followers, and the church wants nothing to do with the whole matter. But as Bernadette attracts wider and wider attention, the phenomenon overtakes everyone in the town, and transforms their lives.