Writing Britain - Christina Hardyment

Writing Britain celebrates some of the most dazzling treasures of English literature, showcasing how BritainÆs greatest authors have been inspired by, and have even redefined, their country. From ChaucerÆs pilgrims journeying from Southwark to Canterbury, to the twenty-first-century suburban hinterlands of J. G. Ballard, this book explores how the places and landscapes of Britain permeate the nationÆs great literary works and how these works have, in turn, helped shape our perception and understanding of landscape and place, both real and imagined.
In addition to celebrating the traditional British landscape, the book also examines the literary construction of the city, following the mysterious fog-filled streets that stretch from the London of Dickens and Robert Louis StevensonÆs Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde to the urban underworlds revealed by contemporary writers such as Neil Gaiman and Iain Sinclair. Featuring such diverse landscapes as Emily Bront\u00ebÆs wild and windy Yorkshire Moors, WordsworthÆs Lake District, Elizabeth GaskellÆs industrial northern towns, the seaside turned nightmare of Bram StokerÆs Dracula, Graham GreeneÆs seedy and menacing Brighton, Virginia WoolfÆs Bond Street, and Hanif KureishiÆs suburbia, Writing Britain describes and illustrates the work of over one hundred of the greatest British writers who have been inspired by place, spanning the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century.