Professor Deanne Williams talks to John Edwards about Philip, Mary and Robert Sidney and their contribution to literature as inspirers and innovators, practitioners and patrons in the Elizabethan and Jacobean period. This episode is an introduction to a new series of readings, prepared in texts in original pronunciation by Hallie Fishel, read by Tracy Ryan, by and about the Sidneys as well as lute pieces dedicated to them, and programmatic of their lives. These podcasts are supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Spem in Alium Fund of the Toronto Foundation.