In Lines of Work prominent people in a particular job read and reflect on the writings of an illustrious forebear of the same trade. The essays are partly about ideas and how they change, but also about the practice and experience of being a certain kind of thing; be it a teacher, a journalist, a soldier or a critic.

Journalist Helen Lewis reads the poet John Milton's defence of a Free Press, Aeropagitica. The question of freedom of the press rarely goes away but it feels particularly of the moment. Helen, deputy editor of the New Statesman, reads Milton for the first time to see whether his 17th century concerns can help us think through the post-Leveson age.

Producer: James Cook.