The Sunday Telegraph - 01.09.2019

2 *** Sunday 1 September 2019 The Sunday Telegraph

COVER STORY

O

n the one hand, read-

ing is good because it

doesn’t require you to

leave your house. On

the other: if you’re go-

ing somewhere new,

reading literature

about your destina-

tion has always been seen as an immer-

sive, stimulating way of appreciating

wherever it is you’re going.

Centuries ago, tourists would take

Romantic poetry to the mountainsides

and hillscapes it described; today,

many of us like to read novels about

places we’re visiting, and now the prac-

tice has its own university course.

Andrew Chater, a British television

producer and academic, runs three

“Bookpacking” classes at the Univer-

sity of South California. He teaches his

students about the rich traditions of lit-

erature within various corners of his

adopted country. “America is this fan-

tastic composite of so many different

regions,” he says. “Their politics, cul-

ture, heritage, topography and their

literature reflect that.”

Every year, he takes a group to New

Orleans, and he has prepared a Los An-

geles itinerary for the coming academic

year. He says that bookpacking spans

history, geography, and social studies,

but that, most importantly, it fos-

ters  “that whole imperative of empa-

thetic connection”.

In the UK, a book called Footnotes: A

Journey Round Britain in the Company

of Great Writers (£16.99, Oneworld) is

published on Thursday. Its author, Pe-

ter Fiennes, writes about a bookpack-

ing tour that includes the work of Enid

Blyton, Charles Dickens, and Wilkie

Collins. He reads the books before he

sets off and brings them with him so

that he can reread extracts when he’s

found an evocative place. “It brings the

magic alive,” he says.

Our literary history means the UK is

teeming with such spots. Here are 30 of

Britain’s best places to get you started.

Don’t forget your paperback.

Tom Ough

BODMIN MOOR

Jamaica Inn by

Daphne du Maurier

“It was a cold grey day in late

November. The weather had

changed overnight, when a backing

wind brought a granite sky and a

mizzling rain with it, and although it

was now only a little after two o’clock

in the afternoon the pallor of a

winter evening seemed to have

closed upon the hills. It would be

dark by four.”

These are the foreboding words

that announce the murky, deceitful

world of Daphne du Maurier’s

Jamaica Inn. Deep within the

rainswept, barren landscape of

Bodmin Moor, newly orphaned Mary

Yellan is forced to take residence in

the infamous Jamaica Inn, a

coaching inn with no guests and an

abusive landlord with a scandalous

side hustle. And where better to

delve into it than the very inn the

book was based on – and written in?

The story goes that du Maurier

went riding with a friend across

Bodmin Moor one day in 1930 when

a thick fog descended as the sun set.

As darkness enveloped the landscape

they were forced to dismount and

find their way to Jamaica Inn. The

ordeal led du Maurier to spend a few

nights at the inn, where she

discovered its history as an 18th-

century smugglers’ hideaway.

The 18th-century part of the

building is now flanked by a

gargantuan extension done in the

style of the original, with a farm

shop, gift shop, café and museum.

It’s a good place for a pint and a

peruse of du Maurier’s belongings.

For a more authentic Jamaica Inn

experience, drive 10 minutes down

the road to the moor itself, hike to

Rough Tor or Brown Willy, and put

yourself in the sodden boots of

Mary, trekking across the moor day

in, day out in search of refuge,

solace, and even a bit of romance.

Pip Sloan

WWHITBY, NORTH YORKSHIRE

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Looking for fresh English blood,

Count Dracula comes ashore at

Whitby. A sinister gothic horror

follows. Stoker’s novel has inspired a

whole genre; Whitby itself is kitted out

all year in goth-style black.

CAMBRIDGE, CAMBRIDGESHIRE

Engleby by Sebastian Faulks

Mike Engleby is a devious oddball who

begins a degree at Cambridge in the

Seventies. Faulks drew on his own

experience of student life there.

THE POTTERIES,

STAFFORDSHIRE

Anna of the Five Towns and other

novels by Arnold Bennett

The “five towns” refer to the towns of

Tunstall, Burslem, Hanley, Stoke and

Longton, all of which were part of the

industrialised Potteries region in

which Bennett set much of his work.

The area has changed since the novel’s

1902 publication, but there are many

remnants of the pottery industry.

EASTWOOD, NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

The Rainbow and other novels by

D H Lawrence

Lawrence was the son of a

Nottinghamshire coal miner, and

though he spent most of his life away

from Britain, it is Nottinghamshire in

which some of his most memorable

work is set. The Rainbow is a lyrical

history of an East Midlands family

whose sensuality is pitted against

industrialisation; Lady Chatterley’s

Lover isn’t really remembered for its

location, but, for what it’s worth, was

also probably set in Nottinghamshire.

Visit Eastwood to see the museum that

preserves Lawrence’s birthplace.

SLAD, GLOUCESTERSHIRE

Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee

In Cider with Rosie, Lee recounts his

childhood in the Slad Valley. Visit the

village of Slad, and raise a glass in his

favourite pub, The Woolpack.

SCOTLAND

SKYE, INNER HEBRIDES

A Journey to the Western Isles of

Scotland by Samuel Johnson

The cantankerous 19th-century

lexicographer Dr Johnson made a

famous three-month journey to the

Western Isles, sidekick James Boswell

in tow, that resulted in a travelogue

apiece. Johnson mentions many

landmarks, but Dunvegan Castle,

where he spent eight nights, is one of

the most striking.

HIGHLANDS T

The Outlander series by Diana

Gabaldon

The dashing, tartan-clad romance

series involves several real-life

Highlands locations, both in the books

and in the television version. You

could start with Castle Leod (Castle

Leoch in the book), in which Claire

Randall, the accidentally time-

travelling protagonist, is held prisoner.

THE MEARNS, ABERDEENSHIRE

Sunset Song by Lewis

Grassic Gibbon

Gibbon chronicles the hard life of

Chris Guthrie, born to a farming

family in the north-east of Scotland,

and does so using English that’s

evocatively infused with Scots. The

big-screen version was largely filmed

in, um, New Zealand, though the

village of Fettercairn, Aberdeenshire,

was also used.

EDINBURGH

Kidnapped by Robert

Louis Stevenson

Although his Strange Case of Dr Jekyll

and Mr Hyde is putatively set in

London, critics have consistently

detected the presence of old Edinburgh

in its setting and inspiration.

Kidnapped, which Stevenson published

the same year, is an entertaining

historical fiction novel that begins and

ends in Edinburgh (with some bonus

Highlands content in between).

GALLOWAY

The Thirty-Nine Steps by

John Buchan

A thrilling chase takes place in rural

Galloway, including (according to

Buchan fans) the now-abandoned

S Dumfries to Portpatrick railway. In

the Hitchcock adaptation, meanwhile,

the hero, Richard Hannay, hides on the

Forth Bridge in east Scotland.

ALLOWAY, AYRSHIRE

Tam O’Shanter and Other Poems by

Robert Burns

The village of Alloway is where

Scotland’s national poet was born,

and where he set “Tam O’Shanter”, a

vivid narrative poem in which a

drunken farmer has a brush with

diabolical forces.

GLASGOW

Lanark by Alasdair Gray

Gray’s surreal, enormous and

occasionally horrifying first novel was

published in 1981 and is regarded as a

post-modern classic. It alternates

between a realist depiction of Glasgow

and a hellish counterpart.

Bookpacking is a novel

way to explore Britain’s

literary heritage – and

here are 30 trips to

get you started

Centuries ago, tourists

would take romantic

poetry to the hillscapes

it described

JAY WILLIAMS; CHARLOTTE GRAHAM; CHRISTOPHER PLEDGER; STUART NICOL; ALAMU; GETTY IMAGES

ENGLAND

BURGH ISLAND, DEVON

And Then There Were None by

Agatha Christie

A beautiful island with a fancy Art

Deco hotel? The perfect setting for a

murder mystery. It inspired And Then

There Were None, Christie’s bestselling

book. Curl up and read it here.

HENLEY & RIVER THAMES

Three Men in a Boat by Jerome

K Jerome

Jerome intended to write a travel

guide, but it somehow morphed

into a hilarious account of a late

Victorian boating trip with two

friends. The trip up the Thames,

from Kingston to Oxford, is both

pretty and easily replicable. If you

don’t want to get on a boat, sit by

the river in lovely Henley.

THE LAKE DISTRICT

Wordsworth, Arthur Ransome

and Beatrix Potter

As an extraordinary period of English

poetry began, Wordsworth and

Coleridge lived and worked here;

Wordsworth in particular put the

landscapes and their inhabitants at the

heart of his writing. A little later,

Beatrix Potter, the beloved children’s

author, was inspired by the Lakes;

later still, Arthur Ransome

amalgamated Windermere and

Coniston Water for the lake by which

Swallows and Amazons is set.

OXFORD, OXFORDSHIRE

Brideshead Revisited by

Evelyn Waugh

Waugh’s exquisite, aching love

story begins with one undergraduate

vomiting through the window of

another. It’s about much more than

Oxford, contrary to the belief of many

students, but the university’s ancient

colleges are an ideal setting to read the

book’s first third.

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