Favourite real life places in novels
Over in the Book Club thread we're reading Jane Austen's Pesuasion. One of the most famous scenes is one where a character jumps off The Cobb, a harbour wall, in Lyme Regis thinking she'll be caught by the man she is courting. Lyme and The Cobb are well known places in the south-west of England and reading the book the first time and then actually going to see the place the pivotal scene was set was something I found fascinating.
What real life places have you enjoyed reading about in novels?
What real life places have you enjoyed reading about in novels?
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I first read them when living in Brisbane. When we moved to the Inner West I re-read some and knowing places like Leichhardt seemed to make them stand out.
The Malcolm Saville Lone Pine Five books were set around the Long Mynd, and when I worked in the Children's Bookshop we used to have regular visits from a man who led walks to the scenes in the books.
Hay-on-Wye features in On the Black Hill by Bruce Chatwin, though he changed the name to Rhulen (which is a much smaller place locally). The film of the book was also done on location around Hay.
I love (most) books set in Edinburgh though. I've just started reading T. L. Huchu's Ropa Moyo series set in an alternative Edinburgh and it's fun comparing what it's like in real life with what it's like in the fictional universe.
The hard at Hamble quay was built, by the Americans, for the D-Day landing preparations, partly using rubble from bombed buildings in Southampton.
I've been to Rye Harbour many times with the Monica Edwards Appreciation Society. We meet every year either at Rye Harbour or Thursley (near "Punchbowl Farm"). We've got an active Facebook page.
Didn't that feature also in Requiem for a Wren?
I’d say my favorite real-live place, though of course details are speculative, is the one at the very end of The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis…
The late Jon Cleary set at least one of his detective novels in Erskineville (aka Erko):part of the stamping ground of my youth.
As a child very few of the books I read were set in NZ because very few were published here. Mum once found me digging in the garden I was about 8, searching for Roman gold. She told me that Romans never made it here. My response was that Maori must be cleverer than Romans then because they did.
Fortunately since then many more NZ books have been published, and the children's book market has really blossomed. If I give a child a book it's usually written in NZ, because of what I missed out when I was a child.
Back to places in books. I once read a Graham Greene short story that was set in Berkhamsted. The town isn’t mentioned but if you know it the sett was obvious.
@ChastMastr you have clearly never read The Summer of the Great Secret.
Although she also adds some "fictionalised" places too.
I once met the author - I went into Waterstones and, unbeknownst to me, she was doing book signings. I was looking for a birthday present for my wife ... you can guess the rest.
I talked to her about her book "the Dragon of an Ordinary Family" and how much the children I taught had enjoyed it.
She died in 2010 or 11 during the time of the earthquakes in Christchurch and I went to a service celebrating her life. After the quakes stopped the City Council decided to build a playground in her memory.
Another book set around Norwich is John Gordon's children's fantasy The Giant Under the Snow - at one point the children fly over the city, between some very recognisable landmarks. John Gordon was a journalist for the Eastern Daily Press, so that was his home ground.
I haven’t, but why do you say that? I’m assuming it has to do with my comment here in some way…?
I don’t know if it’s referring to the Scarecrow of Romney Marsh or to The Last Battle.
Oh, I see! Romney Marsh! Yes, I don’t expect a crossover between Summer of the Great Secret and Scarecrow of Romney Marsh, apart from ghosts or time travel…
If only Aldwych station (which I actually used!) had still been open when the book was written.
That was the Monica Edwards book that got me into the whole series!
Wasn't there a whole series of novels (1030s?) about smugglers on Romney Marsh, led by Dr Syn who was IRL a clergyman?
There certainly were.
I'm told Safffron Walden crops up in Diana Wynne-Jones' Howl's Moving Castle but I have to confess to not seeing it.
Living near Oxford you get a bit blase about it turning up in books (today, in tbe British Museum, I spotted two books by people we've met more than once - it's that sort of place - without even getting onto fiction) - it's like herpes, it just pops up all over the place.
It's even popped up in one of the Knotweed's space opera books, where the protagonists visit the Turf Taven hundreds of years hence. Unsurprisingly, the ceilings are still head-crackingly low.
The first Romney Marsh book I read was 'The Midnight Horse.'
Yes, that’s the Scarecrow reference I was making—in the 1960s, Disney did a TV/film production of it. That’s honestly where I’ve heard of Romney Marsh, and I’m not sure I actually knew it was a real place… played by Patrick McGoohan from The Prisoner!
Promo:
https://youtu.be/ktj9xnBBcCU?is=3ipEV4lM_6gIROzC
The whole thing appears to be on YouTube as well, but I’m not sure I’d be allowed to link that here.
Here’s the song, though:
https://youtu.be/0xr_f6nY8ms?is=WrGtI5OVRbk5f7yy