This is the text of the book of Isaiah, the first and foremost of the 17 'prophetic' books of the Old Testament. Contrasting with images of wrath and destruction are visions of an age of peace and harmony. The biblical text is introduced by Peter Ackroyd.
Two apparently harmless women reside in cottages one building apart in the idyllic English village of Little Camborne. Miss Finch and Miss Swallow, cousins, have put their pasts behind them and settled into conventional country life. But when a mysterious foreigner, Theodore Cadmus – from Caldera, a Mediterranean island nobody has heard of – moves into the middle cottage, the safe monotony of their lives is shattered. The fates of the two cousins and Mr Cadmus, and those of Little Camborne...
