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"Literary pilgrimages are among the most ancient forms of tribute which readers pay to the authors who touch their hearts and minds."
Most of us would love to walk the lush slopes of Box Hill, inhaling the fragrance of wild flowers while picturing Jane Austen's EMMA doing the same. Or climb the Glastonbury Tor to absorb the aura of the Arthurian legends. Or explore Thomas Hardy's ancestral cottage, which he immortalized often in verse. Short of actually being there, LITERARY TRAILS offers us an armchair pilgrimage through selected homes, gardens, and creative corners of some of Britain's most notable writers, as well as the landscapes that inspired their imaginary settings.
While Hardyment admits to being selective out of necessity (the sheer numbers of outstanding British authors and poets is staggering) no one will be disappointed with those she has chosen as her focus. They not only represent a cross-section of classic through contemporary, but there's a wide sampling of genres: fantasy, romance, mystery, nonfiction, and more. A few of the chapters are singly devoted to a writer, as in "Jane Austen in her Landscape" or "Thomas Hardy's Wessex;" yet the scope of Hardyment's research often segues into other writers from around the world. "In Search of Lyonesse" extends all the way to John Steinbeck in a wonderfully touching story of his determination to capture the essence of King Arthur's realm. In one of the many quotes woven into her narration, we see the profound effect that the landscape of Camelot has upon a writer like Steinbeck:
"Yesterday I climbed Camelot on a golden day. The orchards are in flower and we could see the Bristol Channel and Glastonbury too, and King Alfred's tower and all below. And that wonderful place and structure with layer on layer of work and feeling. I found myself weeping."
In "Literature and the Country House," the grand manors that provided both escape and inspiration for the great writers of the day are finely detailed. The Hughenden, Benjamin Disraeli's lavish retreat, which housed the massive library of this bibliophile, contained 25,000 books that he inherited in addition to his own collection. Photographs of the stately mansion at Stowe, where politicians, playwrights, and poets would gather, are accompanied by drawings of the luxurious gardens surrounding it. Hardyment highlights not only the writers who lived in many of these sumptuous homes, but explores the cultural history of the country house from its rise to its fall, and how it was reflected in the writings of such authors as Evelyn Waugh, D. H. Lawrence, and Virginia Woolf.
"Muses and Mountains" encompasses the English Lake District, which was an area overflowing with novelists and poets. Hardyment is particularly taken with the romantic and spirited influence of this mountain region as reflected in the poetry of Coleridge, Keats, and Wordsworth --- and perhaps most charming of all, the children's tales by Beatrix Potter. Her working farm, known as Hill Top, is one of the many estates covering Britain that has been preserved and cared for by the National Trust, which was founded by writers in the Lake District.
The final chapter is devoted to the atmospheric locales of mysteries and thrillers, a genre whose roots seem deeply anchored in British soil. Hardyment credits their proliferation to "the very English obsession with who murdered whom with the candlestick in the library in the vicarage." Cornwall was the setting of Daphne du Maurier's REBECCA, the Norfolk coast for Jack Higgins's THE EAGLE HAS LANDED. There are the gothic churches that inspired Dorothy L. Sayers and the moors of Somerset, awash in folklore, which became Lorna Doone country. Hardyment comments that even American novelists like Martha Grimes "have out-Englished the English" in making use of the quaint village setting teeming with intrigue. And, as in her other chapters, the text is accompanied by Hardyment's annotated trail maps with enticing locations like Downham Market and Wicken Fen.
With all the accouterments any history should contain --- personal photos, area maps, full color plates of both real and symbolic edifices and landscapes --- LITERARY TRAILS conveys a real sense of place to Britain's finest literature. And in case anyone has a quarrel with the omission of this or that writer, Hardyment completes this beautiful journey with the "Gazetteer," an eight page feast of other significant sites and their relevance to various authors' works. What more could you ask for?
--- Reviewed by Ann Bruns (BkPageWC@aol.com)
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