Great Literary Walks
Following in the footsteps of our best-loved writers from Wordsworth to Woolf
Great Literary Walks
Following in the footsteps of our best-loved writers from Wordsworth to Woolf
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Description
Walk in the footsteps of 20 literary figures from Chaucer and Dickens to Austen and Bronte, and find out how these routes inspired some of their most famous works.
Long (and sometimes fairly short) walks have been part of the writing process for many of English Literature's greatest figures, from Chaucer to Dickens and Wordsworth to Jane Austen, Emily Bronte and Simon Armitage. This book takes readers in the footsteps of our literary giants along their favourite routes, whether it's Byron's rocky route up Lochnagar, Dorothy Wordsworth's ascent of Scafell Pike or Virginia Woolf's walks through central London.
Each chapter explores and celebrates an author along one of their specific routes, informed by Ronald Turnbull's own walk in their steps. Lively historical background, quotations and contemporary illustrations place the walks in the context of the literary tradition of their time, and show how the landscapes inspired the authors' writing. We follow Sir Gawain on his long winter journey to the Chapel of the Green Knight, we admire Elizabeth Bennett as she sets out on one of her many country walks, and we immerse ourselves in the lush landscapes of Tolkien's Shire.
The book includes practical route descriptions and simple sketch maps which readers can use as the basis for following the route themselves. What better way to give fresh insight (and fresh air) to some of our best-loved works of literature?
Table of Contents
Quantocks and Somerset Coast Path
'Kubla Khan' is actually a long-distance walking poem. Plus walking writers from Sir Gawain to Simon Armitage
1. A Canterbury Pilgrim
Southwark to Canterbury
Geoffrey Chaucer's story-telling walk
2 The Border Ballads
Housesteads to Haltwhistle
Long-distance cattle thieves of the 16th Century
3. Seacliffs and Ruined Castles: Ann Radcliffe
Fast Castle, Berwickshire coast
Gothic novels had plenty of weeping and fainting, but also some serious hikes across Scotland and the Pyrenees
4. Wordsworth walks the Wye Valley, Wensleydale and Snowdon summit
Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa) from the west
Wordsworth is one of the great walkers, 'The Prelude' is one of the great fellwalking poems
5. Coleridge's Night Crossing of Helvellyn
Keswick to Grasmere over Helvellyn
arriving at Dove Cottage with the poem of 'Christabel' in his pocket
6. Jane Austen Walks Bath
Bath Skyline and the city
Elizabeth Bennet, Catherine Morland, Marianne Dashwood: any Austen heroine loves a country walk
7. Mary Shelley: Frankenstein on the Glacier
Hoy, Orkney Isles
The Sidlaw Hills, Mont Blanc, some fun in small boats and a seriously tough hiking holiday across France
8. Dorothy Wordsworth climbs Scafell Pike
Scafell Pike from Rosthwaite
The third recorded ascent, with her friend Mary
9. Keats climbs Ben Nevis
Half Ben Nevis
From Lancaster to Inverness on foot: essential preparation for life as a poet
10. Emily Bronte: a gritstone block on a solitary moor
Ponden Kirk and Top Withens
How Emily created Heathcliff out of peat, heather, and South Pennine gritstone
11. Robert Louis Stevenson with Donkey in the Cévennes
Robert Louis Stevenson Trail, France
Founders of the French long-distance path system: Modestine and her human handler Robert Louis
12. Queen Victoria's Great Expeditions
Ben Macdui from Linn of Dee
Pony trekking in the Cairngorms, and nine Munro summits
13. Charles Dickens climbs Carrock Fell
Carrock Fell and High Pike
with Wilkie Collins trying to keep up
14. Leslie Stephen climbs the Zinalrothorn
Zinalrothorn North Ridge, Switzerland
Virginia Woolf's dad and the first ascent of a seriously thrilling mountain in the Alps
15. Thomas Hardy on Egdon Heath
Swanage to Ballard Down and Studland Heath
'Return of the Native' Chapter 1, nature writing at its most intense
16. Beatrix Potter crosses Cat Bells
Cat Bells by Boat
Literary pilgrimage in the pawprints of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle
17. Edward Thomas and the Icknield Way
Shoulder of Mutton Hill from Petersfield
The poet who walked even further than Wordsworth
18. Virginia Woolf, London Walker
Virginia Woolf's London
Mrs Dalloway off after some flowers, Woolf herself in quest of a pencil
19. Finding Middle Earth in middle England
The Shire Country Park
Hobbit country on the southern edge of Birmingham
20. Auden in the North Pennines
Nenthead and the Dodd
Pumping engines and abandoned lead mines: among everything else, Auden's a poet of the Pennines
21. Simon Armitage (with a side order of Sir Gawain)
Malham and Gordale Scar
Twenty-one writers and a knight across the hills of England
Product details
| Published | 13 May 2027 |
|---|---|
| Format | Audiobook |
| Duration | 6 hours and 0 minutes |
| ISBN | 9781844867820 |
| Imprint | Conway |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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