Great Britain Literary Landmarks

Even if you’ve never been to Britain, you’ve probably read about it. Jane Austen grew up in Winchester , vacationed in Lyme Regis , and wrote in Bath , enabling future generations of romantic comedies and even a few chick flicks. Farther north, the brooding Brontës—Charlotte, Emily, and Anne—lived in the parsonage in Haworth and captured the wildness of the Yorkshire Moors in their novels. Thomas Hardy was a Dorchester man who perfectly captured Southwest England in the imaginary county of Wessex. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle set Sherlock Holmes’s house on 221B Baker St. in London , but even super-sleuths won’t find the precise address—it’s fictional. Virginia Woolf often vacationed in Cornwall and drew inspiration for her novel To the Lighthouse from Saint Ives and the Isle of Skye . Long after shuffling off his mortal coil, William Shakespeare’s legendary spirit lives on in Stratford-upon-Avon . William Wordsworth grew up in the Lake District and spent much of his time roaming its surrounding mountain ridges with his poetic buddy Samuel Taylor Coleridge. JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis crafted wizards and wardrobes over pints at The Eagle and Child in Oxford . Welshman Dylan Thomas was born in Swansea and was famous for his Welsh lilt. Scotland’s national poet is Robert Burns, and every (really, every) town in Dumfries and Galloway pays tribute to him. Edinburgh cherishes its own favorite Scott, Sir Walter.

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