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Peter Ackroyd
(1949-)
The author is mainly associated
with London settings (e.g.
Hawskmoor), but also wrote
a somewhat satiric SF novel
set at a west Dorset scientific
facility, where a megalithic
tomb has been uncovered,
with unsettling results.
First Light (1989)
Kenneth
Allsop (1920-73)
The former BBC 'Tonight'
anchorman, Fleet Street
journalist and author of
The Angry Decade (on 1950s
literature), became a nature
writer, with his final book
(before his suicide) on
a year in the country around
his west Dorset (Powerstock)
home. His
essays were originally weekly
columns for a national newspaper.
In The Country (essays coll.
1972)
Jane
Austen (1775-1817)
Her two family holidays
at Lyme inspired the most
famous single sequence in
her novels, which made the
Cobb a literary landmark
long before John Fowles
[qv].
Persuasion (1818) [1969,
1995, 2007 TV versions all
part-ph Lyme]
Julian
Barnes (1946-)
The award-winning novelist
(Flaubert's Parrot) went
for an Isle of Wight setting
when he satirised the idea
of creating a Disneyesque
'England' theme-park there
as an escape from a future
dystopian society.
England, England (1998)
William
Barnes (1801-66)
Barnes was a schoolmaster
and linguist who tried in
his poems to preserve the
old Dorset Dialect, his
work serving as an inspiration
to his young neighbour,
Thomas Hardy.
Poems Of Rural Life (1844)
Peter
Benson (1956-)
An ex-Lyme resident, PB wrote a realist novel of an urban youth acquiring a new interest in life
when he goes to stay in west Dorset with an elderly socialist aunt dying of cancer, which won
the Somerset Maugham Award.
The Other Occupant (1990)
Sven
Berlin (1911-99)
The much-admired painter
and sculptor had abandoned
fiction after being sued
by fellow members of the
St Ives artistic colony
over his 1953 roman-a-clef
novel The Dark Monarch.
After moving to the New
Forest in his horse-drawn
caravan and then to a cottage
at Higher Gaunts outside
Wimborne in 1975, he wrote
another novel, a libel-proof
one - a mystical fable of
encounters between a man,
a woman, and a stag in 'the
Great Forest in the South'.
Amergin: An Enigma Of The New Forest (1978)
(Sir)
John Betjeman (1906-84)
The Poet Laureate became
founding chairman of the
Bournemouth & District
Civic Society after doing
a radio essay on the town,
and as editor of the famous
Shell Guides series, he
edited Paul Nash's Dorset,
1936. His local-interest
poems include his famous
1932 "Dorset",
"The Heart Of Thomas
Hardy", and "Youth
And Age On The Beaulieu
River, Hants".
Collected Poems [various
editions]
Trains And Buttered Toast
[essays]
"Nicholas
Blake" (=C.
Day Lewis, 1904-72)
Poet Laureate C. Day Lewis (now buried next to Thomas Hardy) was schooled at Sherborne, and in
1935 used this as a background for a popular detective novel he wrote to raise funds for his
Cheltenham college. The author's later residence at Lyme led to his using the area in what became
a series of 13 detective novels starring private enquiry agent 'Nigel Strangeways', which he
kept going for three decades, 1935-66.
A Question Of Proof (1935)
There's Trouble Brewing
(1937)
The Sad Variety (1964)
Enid
Blyton (1898-1968)
The author's summer residence
at Swanage led to her using
the area for her Famous
Five stories, with the place
names fictionalised but
identifiable, eg. 'Kirrin
Island' = Brownsea.
Famous Five series, 21 books
1942-63: Five On A Treasure
Island etc [film and tv
versions partly shot locally]
David
Burnett (1946-)
The founder of Dovecote Press
in Wimborne has also written
several historical novels,
including one set at Stonehenge
and Avebury in the Neolithic
era.
A Priestess Of Henge (1982)
Arthur
Cadman (1911-2001)
The Deputy Surveyor of the
New Forest from 1959-68
authored a local nature
classic.
Dawn, Dusk & Deer (1966)
Tracy
Chevalier (1962-)
Dorset-resident TC used
her familiarity with her
neighbourhood to make the
protagonists of her novel
Burning Bright a family
from the Piddle Valley,
who move to London in 1792
next door to the poet William
Blake. She followed that
up with a biographical novel
set in early 19th-C Lyme
Regis, narrated by fossil
collectors Mary Anning and
Elizabeth Philpot.
Remarkable Creatures (2009)
Agatha
Christie (1891-1976)
AC's Miss Marple, heroine
of 12 novels, lived at 'St
Mary Mead', a village apparently
on the Hants-Wilts boundary
- all the place names are
fictitious. (The 1980s BBC
series considered the most
authentic adaptation was
shot at Nether Wallop [as
'St Mary Mead'] in Hants,
in Bournemouth [The Body
In The Library], and west
Dorset [A Murder Is Announced].)
Murder At The Vicarage (1930)
The Body In The Library
(1942)
Douglas
Clark (1919-?)
The writer used his own
business background in pharmaceuticals
as a basis of his 28 'Superintendent
Masters' police-procedural
novels, one of which is
set at 'Chinemouth' and
'Ponde' (read Bournemouth
and Poole) involving an
undercover investigation
into a drugs-related murder
possibly involving local
police collusion.
Dead Letter (1984)
'Bernard
Cornwell' (=Bernard
Wiggins, 1944-)
Though best-known for his
televised 'Sharpe' novels
which got him an OBE, BC
has also written a series
of novels largely set in
the Wessex region in earlier
times, from the Neolithic
through the Arthurian and
Alfredian eras.
The "Warlord Chronicles"
trilogy: The Winter King
(1995); Enemy Of God (1996);
Excalibur (1997)
Stonehenge: A Novel Of 2000
BC (2000)
The "Saxon Stories"
series (2004-): The Last
Kingdom, 2004; The Pale
Horseman, 2005; The Lords
of the North, 2006; Sword
Song 2007; The Burning Land
2009.
John
Creasey (aka "Gordon
Ashe" "JJ Marric"
etc) (1908-73)
After WWII, Britain's most
prolific crime writer (560
books under 20 pen-names)
was a Bournemouth resident,
and he set at least one
book locally. During the
great blizzard of '46, hero
Patrick Dawlish has to fight
a well-armed neo-Nazi gang
who have taken over the
Dorset village of 'Hurn.'
Here Is Danger [by Creasey
writing as "Gordon
Ashe"](1946)
'Peter
James Davidson'
"Fossil hunter, dinosaur
enthusiast, inventor"
PJD, a pseudonym for an
IT consultant who self-published
his illustrated popular-science
children's book before having
it picked up by a regular
publisher, used a time-travel
scenario to bring alive
the denizens of Dorset's
fossil-paradise World Heritage
Site, recently following
it up with a sequel.
Professor 'P' And The Jurassic
Coast (2004)
Professor P And The Jurassic
Island (2010)
Juliette
de Bairacli Levy (1912-)
The 'Grandmother of Herbal
Medicine' lived in the New
Forest (in a pink cob cottage
at Frogham End) and wrote
a 'cult' nonfiction book
on the Gypsies, flora and
fauna of the Forest, based
on her time living there.
Wanderers In The New Forest
(1958)[Introduction by Augustus
John - sometimes listed
as co-author]
Jan
de Hartog (1914-2002)
The author, a ship's officer
and writer, escaped from
Occupied Holland in 1943
to serve on the unarmed
tugboats rescuing torpedoed
Channel-convoy ships, an
experience he characterized
as a study in the nature
of fear. After the war he
lived for a time on Wight
and wrote a novel from his
war experience, set in "Westport",
played in Carol Reed's film
version mainly by Weymouth.
The Distant Shore [paperback
editions are titled The
Key, after the 1958 film
based on Book I, "Stella"]
(1950)
Bill
Douglas (1937-91)
The admired Scots filmmaker
whose work is the basis
of The Bill Douglas Centre
at the U. Of Exeter made
a 3-hour realist drama filmed
in Dorset and Australia,
on the struggle of the Tolpuddle
Martyrs in 1834, the script
published as a book.
Comrades: A Lanternist's
Account Of The Tolpuddle
Martyrs And What Became
Of Them (1986)(BFI/Skreba
1986)
(Sir)
Arthur Conan Doyle
(1859-1930)
ACD's own favourite of his
works was not Sherlock Holmes
but an idealistic, almost
Tolkienesque, historical romance
about a group of 14C adventurers
forming up in order to join
the war in France. The setting
is the New Forest, as the
young heroes travel from Beaulieu
Abbey to Christchurch Castle
to The Solent, and then fight
sea rovers off Purbeck. ACD
later bought a house in the
New Forest, and is buried
at Minstead, home of the novel's
young hero.
The White Company (1891)
Alfred
Duggan (1903-64)
After squandering his inheritance
from his stepfather Lord
Curzon, AD became an archaeologist,
and used his training to
introduce realism to the
historical novel. In his
first attempt, he adopted
the political-confessional
format with Cerdic, founder
of Wessex narrating how
he really rose to power
as a sort of "Dark
Ages Harry Flashman".
Another tells the story
of Alfred hiding out in
the Somerset marshes and
darkly plotting his comeback.
Conscience Of The King (1951,
Cassell Military Paperbacks
2005)
The King Of Athelney (1961,
Methuen pbk 1999)
Gerald
Durrell (1925-95)
When not travelling, GD
stayed in Bournemouth and
wrote some Thurber-style
humorous pieces about these
times - an old girlfriend,
a family outing to Lulworth,
a stay at the Royal Bath
Hotel, and a maternal intrigue.
"Ursula" in Fillets
Of Plaice [sic] (coll. 1972)
"The Picnic" and
"The Havoc Of Havelock"
in The Picnic & Suchlike
Pandemonium (coll. 1979)
"Ludwig" in Marrying
Off Mother (coll. 1991)
T.S.
Eliot (1888-1965)
The modernist poet (The
Waste Land) Eliot was an
American who settled in
England and named one of
the sections in his famous
after a hamlet near Yeovil
where his family had roots
- East Coker, where he is
now buried.
"East Coker" (1940)
in Four Quartets (coll.
1943)
J.
Meade Falkner (1858-1932)
JMF's classic children's
novel about an orphan involved
in the dark days of the
smuggling era is set mainly
at Fleet village by Chesil
Bank in West Dorset, White
Nothe cliff by Lulworth,
and Carisbrooke Castle on
the IoW.
Moonfleet (1898)
John
Fowles (1926-2005)
The author of The Collector
and The Magus moved at Lyme
Regis when successful, and
the setting inspired his
1960s hit which used the
novel form to reflect on
modern versus period sensibilities.
The French Lieutenant's
Woman (1966) [1980 film
part-ph Dorset; film script
by Harold Pinter also pub.]
David
Garnett (1892-1981)
Garnett was a member of
the Bloomsbury set whose
visits to the Chaldon Herring
literary colony inspired
a historical novel, on a
sailor who returns to his
inn with an African wife,
taking its title from the
name of the village pub.
The Sailor's Return (1925)
[filmed by ITV 1980]
Maggie
Gee (1948-)
The Poole-born author returned
to live in Bournemouth when
she married RL Stevenson
biographer Nicholas Rankin
and used the seaside resort
as a part setting in two
novels.
Light Years (1985)
Grace (1988)
William Gilpin (1724-1804)
Vicar of Boldre 1777-1804, WG was an early promoter of the "cult of the picturesque,"
and authored a hand-crafted 'nature' book on the New Forest, becoming known as "the Gilbert
White of the New Forest."
Remarks On Forest Scenery .... Illustrated By The Scenes Of The New-Forest In Hampshire (1781-)
[various editions, sometimes titled just 'Forest Scenery' or 'Forest Sketches']
(Sir)
William Golding
(1911-93)
The Nobel Prize winning
author lived most of his
life in Wiltshire, and set
one of his novels, about
an ambitious cleric, at
Salisbury Cathedral in the
Middle Ages.
The Spire (1964)
Marguerite
("John") Radclyffe
Hall (1880-1943)
Born in Bournemouth, the
lesbian novelist and poet
set her first novel in a
seaside resort based on
Southbourne, about the burden
placed on adult daughters
to put caring for an ageing
mother ahead of career interests.
The Unlit Lamp (1924; Virago
pbk 1981)
Thomas
Hardy (1840-1928)
His 'Wessex Novels' put the region firmly on the literary map of England
as "a partly real, partly dream country".Written 1872-97, the
first-published versions were mostly magazine serials, often censored,
TH restoring the originals for the Wessex Edition.
--The "Wessex Novels" series (Macmillan Wessex Edition 1912-13)
[revised ed'ns of Under The Greenwood Tree, Far From The Madding Crowd,
The Mayor Of Casterbridge, The Return Of The Native, Tess Of The D'Urbervilles
etc.]
Collected Stories (Macmillan 1928; 1988) [47 short stories]
The Works Of Thomas Hardy (Wordsworth's Poetry Library 1994)[reprint of
all 968 poems, from various volumes]
More info on Hardy's work onsite here.
James
Herbert (1943-)
The bestselling horror writer
set one of his novels in
the New Forest, depicting
it as being charged with
magic powers.
The Magic Cottage (1987)
C.
Walter Hodges (1909-2004)
An illustrator and author
of children’s historical
novels, his two novels about
King Alfred are regarded
as his best, with episodes
set in Dorset and in Somerset.
The Namesake (1964)
The Marsh King (1967)
Geoffrey
Household (1900-88)
Bristol-born GH lived for
a time in Dorset, and set
several novels here, including
his most famous, about a
gentleman vigilante who
tries to assassinate Hitler
and for political reasons
is then unable to turn to
the police as British Fascists
run him to ground outside
Lyme Regis. He also wrote
a post-apocalyptic fantasy
about British stoicism and
enterprise, with a title
from Blake's Jerusalem,
set at Avebury.
Rogue Male (1939)(US title
Man Hunt) [filmed 1941 Hollywood;
1976 telefeature ph Dorset]
Arrows Of Desire (1985)
Linden
Howard (19??-
Romance writer LH set one
of her novels, an example
of the popular Mills &Boon
style novel, in 1880 on
a fictitious islet off the
west Dorset coast.
Enchanted Island (1982)
W.H.
Hudson (1841-1922)
Best-known for his jungle
romance Green Mansions,
the Argentinan-born American
ornithologist lived for
a time in the New Forest
and near the Hants-Wilts
boundary, and wrote several
books on the region's fading
pre-Industrial ways, plus
a futuristic novel about
Wessex as a post-cataclysm
reforested Arcadia.
A Crystal Age (1887) [novel]
Hampshire Days (1903)
A Shepherd's Life: Impressions
Of The South Wiltshire Downs
(1910)
[essays on country life
c1840-1900]
Angela Huth
(1938-)
The former BBC presenter's
wartime novel about the
Women's Land Army is set
on a Dorset farm near the
fictitious village of 'Hinton
Half Moon'.
The Land Girls (1994) [filmed
1998, ph Somerset]
"Francis
Iles" (= Anthony Berkeley Cox, 1893-1971)
His cult crime novel, a psychological study of victimhood set in Dorset
and Bournemouth, was filmed 1941 by Hitchcock as Suspicion, and in 1987
by Barry Levinson and Jonathan Lynn for ITV, though in both cases the
novel's dark ending proved too controversial to film.
Before The Fact (1932)
Kazuo Ishiguro (1954-
The Remains Of The Day (1989)
Japanese-English novelist KI's award-winning novel is narrated as the
reminsicence of the hidebound head butler at a Salisbury-area stately
home, before and after WWII, as he attempts a sentimental journey ending
at Weymouth Pier.
P.D. James
(Baroness Phyllis D. James, 1920-)
The author's visits to family in the Purbecks inspired her to use Purbeck's
clifftop Clavel Tower in one of her 'Adam Dalgleish' detective novels,
and one of her 'Cordelia Gray' novels has a setting based on Brownsea
(as 'Courcy Island' on the Dorset coast).
The Black Tower (1975) [ITV 1985 serial ext-ph Purbeck]
The Skull Beneath The Skin (1982)
The Private Patient (2008) [Cdr Dalgleish in Dorset again]
Richard
Jefferies (1848-87)
Victorian 'Wiltshire countryman'
writer RJ wrote essays and
futuristic fiction.
After London, Or Wild England
(1885) [futuristic novel]
The Life Of The Fields (1884)
[essays]
The Toilers Of The Field
(1892) [essays]
D.H.
Lawrence (1885-1930)
One of DHL's lesser-known
novels is set on Wight,
which he wrote following
a 1909 holiday there with
his mother, and then rewrote
while convalescing in Bournemouth
in 1912.
The Trespasser (1912)
"John
LeCarre" (=David
John Moore Cornwell) (1931-)
The author's schooling at
Sherborne inspired an early
'George Smiley' novel, where
he is invited back to deal
with a potential scandal.
A Murder Of Quality (1962)
[ITV 1990 prod'n ph Sherborne]
C.
Day Lewis (aka
"Nicholas Blake"1904-72)
A children's novel about
members of a boys school
engaging in role-playing
'grown-up' adventures, evidently
part-inspired by his schooldays
in Sherborne.
The Otterbury Incident (1948)
Alexis
Lykiard (1940-)
A Greek poet and translator of French Surrealist classics who settled in southwest England, AL
also wrote a novel about a wannabee writer haunted by a tragic affair, with an early-60s Bournemouth
setting amidst the then-budding language-schools 'scene'.
The Summer Ghosts (1964)
Ian McEwan
(1948-)
The award-winning author of
Atonement set his 2007 novel
in an (evidently fictitious)
large hotel overlooking Chesil
Bank beyond Portland, back
in 1962 (ie pre-Sexual Revolution).
As the blurb puts it, “a
newlywed couple sit down to
dinner in a Dorset hotel,
each anxiously contemplating
the wedding night to come.”
On Chesil Beach (2007)
Rosemary Manning (1911-88,
also wrote as "Mary Voyle")
As well as adult fiction, RM also wrote children's novels, including one based on the mediaeval
Poole-based pirate Harry Paye, and another featuring a Cornish dragon in Weymouth Harbour.
Arripay (1963)
The Dragon In The Harbour (1980)
Captain Marryat ( =Frederick
Marryat, 1792-1848)
Though mainly a writer of first adult and then children's stories based on his Naval experience,
FM is best remembered for his Cavaliers-vs-Roundheads children's novel set around Sway in the
New Forest, and which he wrote while living nearby, at Lymington, and at his brother's home,
now Chewton Glen Hotel.
Children Of The New Forest (1847)
(Dame) Ngaio Marsh (1899-1982)
The NZ-born NM based at least one of her 32 'Inspector Alleyne' novels (1934-80) in Dorset, set
at a weekend house party for theatrical types, at 'Highfold Manor', cut off by a blizzard.
Death And The Dancing Footman (1942)
Gladys Mitchell (1901-83)
Resident at Corfe Mullen, Dorset from 1961 till her death, a number of this cult author's 'Dame
Adela Beatrice LeStrange' series of 66 books written 1929-83, are based around her amateur-sleuth's
fictitious New Forest home village of 'Wandles Parva', with stories also often set in neighbouring
Dorset.
Uncoffin'd Clay (1980)
(Dame) Iris Murdoch
(1919-99)
The late novelist often stayed in Dorset (visiting HG Wells's and Rebecca West's son, novelist
Anthony West), and wrote one novel set at a west Dorset manor house, about a civil servant getting
caught up in the web of adultery and blackmail he is meant to be investigating.
The Nice And The Good (1968)
Paul Nash (1889-1946)
The famous artist, who died in Boscombe, was commissioned by Shell Guides editor John Betjeman
[qv] to produce the Dorset guidebook, and he also produced a spinoff book on Swanage.
The Shell Book Of Dorset (1936)
Swanage, Or Seaside Surrealism (1937)
Ian Ogilvy (1943-)
The boyish 70s TV actor turned children’s author also wrote a satire of modern societal
divisions, set in Somerset but clearly inspired by Dorset’s Cerne Giant hill-figure and
its controversies.
The Polkerton Giant (1997)
C. Northcote Parkinson (1909-93)
A professor of economics best-known for his Parkinson's Law ("work expands to fill the time
available to complete it"), CNP wrote over 50 books on various subjects, including a children's
novel set in the New Forest, and a naval-adventure series in the first of which his hero Richard
Delancey 'combats the smugglers of Poole.'
Ponies' Plot (1965)
Devil To Pay (1972)
Harold Pinter (1930-2008)
The former actor lived and worked in Bournemouth in the 1950s, and is thought to have used material
gathered from staying in local B&Bs in his first major play. He solved the problem of filming
Fowles's Lyme-set literary novel The French Lieutenant's Woman via a film-within-a-film framework.
The Birthday Party (1957) [play]
The French Lieutenant's Woman (1980) [published film script ]
Anthony Powell CBE (1905–2000)
The author, who lived for 50 years at a country house outside Frome in east Somerset, was known
as the English Proust for his autiobiographical novel-sequences. Powell’s third novel,
From A View To A Death, was inspired by Salisbury boyhood recollections, his father being in
the army, set on a Wiltshire country estate where the shooting rights are undr dispute.
From A View To A Death (1934)
John Cowper Powys (1872-1963)
The author of lengthy mystical - some say mystifying - novels and literary-philosophical studies
grew up partly at Montacute near Yeovil, had various Dorset family connections, and used the
area in novels written during the Interwar period.
Wolf Solent (1929)
Glastonbury (1932)
Weymouth Sands (1934)
Maiden Castle (1937)
Llewelyn Powys (1884-1939)
Essayist, lecturer, brother of JC Powys [above] and Theodore [below], who published over 30 books,
including literary and philosophical studies.
Dorset Essays (1935)
Theodore
Francis Powys (1875-1953)
The reclusive author of
pessimist black-comedy fables
-- magic-realist novels
and short stories -- used
the country villages of
Chaldon and Mappowder near
where he lived as settings.
His most famous work is
a novel where God and his
archangel Michael arrive
at the village of 'Folly
Down' in the guise of a
travelling wine merchant
and his assistant.
Mr Weston's Good Wine (1927)
Christopher
Priest (1943-)
Wiltshire-based CP, a mainly
SF author, wrote a pair
of works with a local setting.
One has initially has a
'think-tank' under Maiden
Castle being taken over
by government in 1983 when
they 'project' a model future
for test-subjects to try
out 150 years ahead in 2137
AD, when the area has been
transformed into a Soviet-bloc
island tourist-state. The
other is a nuclear conspiracy
thriller set in modern Wiltshire.
A Dream Of Wessex (US: The
Perfect Lover) (1977)
The Quiet Woman (1990)
(Sir)
Terence Rattigan
(1911-77)
TR often stayed in Bournemouth,
leading to several plays
set in or near the town,
most famously a pair of
linked playlets set in a
Bournemouth guesthouse,
plus his final work, on
a 1930s murder scandal,
the Rattenbury case.
Separate Tables (1955) [adapted
for film 1958 and ITV 1982]
Cause Celebre (1978) [2-act play, Anglia TV 1987]
Keith
Roberts (1935-2000)
KR has been called “the Thomas Hardy of science fiction", one encyclopedia describing
his work as 'permeated with a melancholic, rain-drenched, sometimes enchanted English landscape.'
Using sets of linked stories, his work is set in a post-apocalyptic Wessex. Chosen by Anthony
Burgess as one of his 99 Novels selections, as 'a striking work of the imagination,' his Pavane
is an "alternative history" story, set at 'Durnovaria' in a still-Catholic England
of 1968.
Pavane (coll. 1966)
The Chalk Giants (coll.
1974)
'Mark
Ronson' (=Marc
Alexander, 1929- )
The NZ-born author was the
friend and biographer of
the Church of England's
chief exorcist, who wrote
a 1969 book on Chideock,
and MR used his involvement
as background for a series
of ghost stories, including
a novel based on a real
Dorset location (Lytchett
Matravers) and associated
legends.
Whispering Corner: A Narration
(1989)
'Edward
Rutherfurd' (=Francis
Edward Wintle) (1948-)
Salisbury-born ER, the author of massive eon-spanning family sagas, set his first opus in Salisbury
and the Avon Valley, and another in the New Forest.
Sarum (1986)
The Forest (2000)
Anthony
Shaffer (1926-2001)
The playwright's best-known
work is a twist-in-the-tail
murder mystery set at "Cloak
Manor" outside Salisbury.
Sleuth (1970) [play filmed
1972 ext-ph Dorset, and
2007]
Neville
Shute (= Neville
Shute Norway, 1899-1960)
The aviation designer turned
novelist's favourite locale
was Australia (as in his
On The Beach), but also
drew on his 1940s experience
with establishments at Christchurch
and in the New Forest. This
sad tale of one of those
that lost their way in wartime
has a central flashback
set in the Lymington-Beaulieu
area around the Navy's shore
station at Exbury House,
and inspired by a still-unsolved
aviation mystery.
Requiem For A Wren (1955,
US title The Breaking Wave)
Frederick
E Smith (1922-)
Bournemouth-resident since
1980, and best known for
his 633 Squadron and sequels,
South African born FES also
wrote an adult romance set
in the Purbecks.
The Wider Sea Of Love (1969)
Caroline
Stickland (1955-)
Bridport resident adult-literacy
tutor CS's series of historical
novels begun with The Standing
Hills, set in 1860s Dorset,
have a background in early
Victorian-era local history,
such as the 1830s agricultural
riots in A House Of Clay.
The Standing Hills 1986)
A House Of Clay (1988)
The Darkness Of Corn (1990)
An Ancient Hope (1993)
The Darkening Leaf (1995)
Julia
Strachey (1901-1979)
Lytton Strachey's niece,
JS was one of the Bloomsbury
literary set, the pair having
stayed in the area at a
friend’s house on
the edge of the New Forest.
Her two novellas are not
well-known, but admired
for their deft social observation
and wit à la Jane
Austen. Set somewhere on
the Dorset coast, the 1932
Cheerful Weather For The
Wedding has the bride needing
a bottle of rum as she contemplates
her imminent wedding , and
the more vaguely set 1951
An Integrated Man, originally
titled The Man On The Pier,
concerns the old-fashioned
hero's dilemma over the
prospect of an affair with
a friend's wife.
Cheerful Weather For The Wedding / An Integrated Man [1932; 1978 Penguin pbk; Cheerful Weather
republished 2009 by Persephone Modern Classics]
Rosemary
Sutcliff (1920-92)
This author overcame the
handicap of a crippling
disease to became a major
writer of historical novels
for both children and adults,
set in every era from the
prehistoric on, including
one [classed as an adult
novel - perhaps YA or Young
Adult might be better] about
Elizabeth I's lady-in-waiting
Bess Throckmorton, who secretly
married Sir Walter Raleigh,
the pair taking up residence
at Sherborne Castle, he
becoming MP for Dorset before
losing all when the Queen
died. Sketch-maps in her
4 YA novels set at the onset
of the Dark Ages show how
the stories range across
the entire Roman province,
including its last survival,
the wealthy Romano-British
"villa" society
that will become part of
the new Saxon kingdom of
Wessex.
Lady In Waiting (1957)
The Lantern Bearers (1959)
Emma
Tennant (1937-)
Her original family home
being Wilsford Manor on
the Avon, ET sometimes draws
on local material. Queen
Of Stones has a group of
schoolgirls on a west Dorset
outing disappearing a la
Picnic At Hanging Rock,
while her Tess, set in the
1950s, is a feminist reworking
of Hardy's Tess Of The d'Urbervilles
as part of a larger canvas
in which Hardy himself appears.
Queen Of Stones (1982)
Tess (1993)
Paul
Theroux (1941-)
American travel writer (Kingdom
By The Sea) and novelist
(Mosquito Coast) also wrote
a Dorset-set novel. Here,
an anthropologist and his
wife discover the natives
are no more friendly than
they were in Uganda, and
their rented house in West
Dorset seems haunted by
a commanding female spectre.
The Black House (1974)
Flora
Thompson (1876-1947)
The writer on English village
life (famous for her recently
televised Lark Rise To Candleford
trilogy, an autobiographically-based
novelisation of late-Victorian
social life in a pair of
country villages) began
her writing career while
a Bournemouth resident 1903-16,
contributing magazine essays
on the New Forest and Wight.
'The Peverel Papers: A Yearbook
Of The Countryside' pub.
in A Country Calendar (coll.
1979)
"Nicola
Thorne" (=Rosemary
Ellerbeck aka 'Katherine
Yorke' etc, 193?-)
The now Devon-resident author
set a 6-novel romantic historical
saga in a mid-Dorset village
1880s-1950s while living
there in the 1990s, and
despite a serious car accident
has begun another such,
a trilogy set 1920s-50s.
In between these, she wrote
a a work of "faction"
recreating the life of a
woman a teenage Thomas Hardy
watched hang for murdering
her husband, eventually
inspiring his Tess.
The 'People Of This Parish'
series, 1991-2000: The People
Of This Parish, The Rector's
Daughter, In This Quiet
Earth, Past Love, A Time
Of Hope, In Time Of War.
The 'Broken Bough' Saga,
2000-: The Broken Bough,
The Blackbird's Song, The
Water's Edge.
My Name Is Martha Brown
(2000) [fact-based, set
1856 Dorset]
Michael
Tod (1937-)
The former Dorset resident
initially self-published
the first of his Watership
Down style "squirrel
wars" books, now collected
as a trilogy, which are
set on Brownsea Island and
Purbeck's Blue Pool.
The 'Woodstock Saga': The
Silver Tide (1993); The
Second Wave (1994); The
Golden Flight (1995); trilogy
also pub. as The Dorset
Squirrels (1999)
Louise
Tondeur (1972-)
Born in Poole and raised
in Bournemouth, scriptwriting
lecturer LT named her Bournemouth-set
2003 novel after a now-vanished
Boscombe hotel, and based
a second novel, called a
mix of 'homespun gothic
and seaside camp' (Independent),
on local sites like Portland
and Moreton.
The Water's Edge (2003)
The Haven Home For Delinquent
Girls (2005)
Ben
Travers (1886-1980)
The founder of the 'Aldwych
school' of slapstick sex
romps, BT lived in Somerset
in the 1920s, his best-known
hit, Rookery Nook, being
named after a Somerset house.
His first play was published
as a novel, about a couple
booked, due to mistaken
identity, into a single
room at the inn in “Combe
Puddy, Dorsetshire.”
The Dippers (1920) [novel,
stage and radio play]
(Sir)
Frederick Treves
(1853-1923)
Though best-known today
as the doctor played by
Anthony Hopkins in The Elephant
Man, the Dorchester-born
Treves was the first president
of the Society of Dorset
Men and wrote an early guidebook.
Highways And Byways In Dorset
(1906)
William
Trevor (= William
Trevor Cox, 1928-)
After moving to Devon, the
multiple award winning Irish
author set one of his novels
in a run-down west Dorset
seaside town, about a lad
on a Council estate who
observes and blackmails
the hypocritical adults
around him, which won the
Whitbread Best Novel prize,
was adapted by WT for BBC-TV,
and has been republished
by Penguin Modern Classics.
The Children Of Dynmouth
(1976) [also BBC-TV 1987
version]
Lynne
Truss (1955-)
Before she became a household
name with her grammar book
Eats, Shoots & Leaves,
LT wrote a humorous novel
about the Isle of Wight's
Victorian-era literary scene
which formed around Tennyon's
home on west Wight.
Tennyson's Gift (1996)
H.A.
Vachell (1861-1955)
After returning to England
in 1900, HAV settled in
a large country house near
Bath where he wrote over
50 books, including a number
set in Dorset and the New
Forest.
The Other Side (1910) [set
Sherborne]
Quinney's (1914; repr 1969)
[part-set Weymouth]
Leaves From Arcady (1924)
[New Forest]
Peter
Vansittart (1920-2008)
Though acclaimed by some
critics as "England’s
greatest living historical
novelist," PV himself
said his work was not popular
"due to my obsession
with language and speculation,"
but he has continued to
offer an anti-romantic re-interpretation
of legends, including Arthurian
Britain in several novels.
Camelot (1978)
367 (1984)
Sylvia
Townsend Warner
(1893-1978)
STW was a prolific writer
(7 novels and 140 short
stories for The New Yorker)
who lived much of her life
in west Dorset, together
with Valentine Ackland as
part of the literary circle
(of TF Powys et al) at Chaldon
Herring and later at Maiden
Newton.
Dorset Stories (2006)
Alec
Waugh (1898-1981)
The older brother of Evelyn,
AW based his first novel,
about what lay behind some
of those close schoolboy
friendships, on his own
time at Sherborne, where
it was banned.
The Loom Of Youth (1918)
Evelyn
Waugh (1903-66)
EW wrote his first novel
staying outside Wimborne
in 1927, and his prewar
and WWII Dorset stays no
doubt helped inspire his
most famous novel, though
his Brideshead Manor is
put somewhere in Wiltshire.
Brideshead Revisited (1944,
revd 1959)[ITV 1981; filmed
2007]
Dennis
Wheatley (1897-1977)
The prolific writer of exotic
adventure-fantasy is best
remembered for his horror
novels of the occult, one
being set in the New Forest
where he lived and wrote
18 of his books. DW used
the Georgian house that
was his home 1944- as the
hero's home in his Napoleonic-era
series of 12 novels covering
the 1783-1815 career of
dashing anti-Republican
secret agent Roger Brook.
The Launching Of Roger Brook
(1947)[ first in series]
The Ka Of Gifford Hillary
(1956)
Ralph
Wightman (1901-71)
Countryman broadcaster and
writer from Piddletrenthide,
whose fame rested on presenting
'the Dorset dialect to the
world.' He did not however
write his books in dialect.
The Seasons (1954)
Rural Rides (1957)
PG
Wodehouse (1881-1975)
The young PGW stayed with
aristocratic friends near
Lyme Regis, set his first
novel locally, and in 1934
set parts of a Jeeves &
Wooster novel at the resort
of 'Chuffnell Regis' in
Dorset. (The 1992 ITV series
shot these scenes in East
Devon.) His final Jeeves
novel is set in Somerset,
at the Dorset-sounding village
of "Maiden Eggesford"
near "Bridmouth-On-Sea."
Love Among The Chickens
(1906, revd 1920)
Thank You, Jeeves (1934)
Aunts Aren't Gentlemen (1974)
"Dornford
Yates" (=Cecil
William Mercer, 1885-1960)
In his 1919-36 "Berry,
Adele & Co." series,
DY, an expatriate ex-London
barrister, wrote about the
smart set with country houses
to whom cars had offered
a new mobility. His protagonists
'Berry' Pleydell and wife
Adele enjoy life at "White
Ladies" house in the
New Forest - a place that
had impressed DY during
a student caravanning holiday.
DY used his legal experience
to depict criminal 'low
life' and his smart-set
actor friends for 'high
life' characters.
Berry & Co. (coll. 1919)
And Berry Came Too (coll.
1936)
Literary
Anthologies
These are useful for accessing
shorter items such as poems
or reading samples from longer
works otherwise hard to obtain.
The
Dorset Bedside Anthology
Editor Margaret Goldsworthy,
Arundel Press 1951
The
Isle Of Wight Bedside Anthology
Editor Hugh Noyes, IOW County
Press 1951
Poet's
England series: Dorset
Editor Guy Stapleton, Brentham
Press 1996
Wessex:
A Literary Celebration
Editor Desmond Hawkins,
National Trust 1991
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