A richly illustrated guide to the literature and landscape of Norfolk
A richly illustrated guide to the literature and landscape of Norfolk
Literary Norfolk is a celebration of the writers and writings of a unique and beautiful corner of Britain.
- Authors: Julian Earwaker and Kathleen Becker
- Publisher: Aurum Press
- ISBN: 1 85410 919 7
- Extent: 304 pages
'meticulously arranged... modest title' David Taylor, The Independent 'Books of the Year', November 28 1998
- 304 pages
- More than 150 authors spanning seven centuries
- Detailed entries for 80 Norfolk towns and villages
- Useful location map
- More than 250 illustrations
- Superb colour plates of Norfolk’s literary landscapes
- Foreword by Malcolm Bradbury
- Listed in The Independent ‘Books of the Year 1998’
This lavishly
illustrated, deeply researched and absorbing guide to the writers and writings
of Norfolk takes the reader on a literary pilgrimage - across flint-strewn
fields and reed-rimmed broads, from an embattled coast to the very heart of the
county’s ancient cathedral city. A reference book for students, scholars and
enthusiasts, a travel guide, and a thoroughly readable narrative rich in
history, Literary Norfolk offers a delightful way to explore the county -
combining the best of the landscape with the finest of English literature.
Norfolk’s wide skies, sense of mystery and quiet continuity have captivated generations of writers. But Norfolk is good at keeping secrets and, for many years, its rich literary heritage remained one of them. Now, using an abundance of quotes, anecdotes and biographical detail, Literary Norfolk has placed the county firmly on the map of English literature.
‘I am still reeling with delight at the soaring majesty of Norfolk’ John Betjeman, 1974
Gathered together as representatives of this proud and independent county are writers as diverse as fourteenth-century mystic recluse Julian of Norwich, fifteenth-century letter writers the Paston family, sixteenth-century pamphleteer Thomas Nashe, seventeenth-century novelist Daniel Defoe and philosopher physician Thomas Browne, eighteenth-century diarist Parson Woodforde, reformer Thomas Paine and poet William Cowper, nineteenth-century traveller George Borrow, Victorian best-sellers Rider Haggard, Anthony Trollope and Wilkie Collins, through to Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle and modern-day naturalist Richard Mabey, playwright Arnold Wesker, novelist Hilary Mantel, poet Anthony Thwaite and crime writer Ruth Rendell.
Journeying through landscapes both real and imagined, Literary Norfolk reveals a tapestry of work that is richly coloured and densely woven. Explore the coastline where Robinson Crusoe is first shipwrecked, sail unspoilt waterways with Arthur Ransome, walk the lonely headland with P D James and Inspector Dalgliesh on the trail of ‘The Whistler’. This is the land of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty, and Jack Higgins’ The Eagle has Landed. Running through the many threads of this literary tapestry is a common spirit - the spirit of Norfolk. ‘Meticulously arranged... the excellence of [its] critical forays belies its modest title’
The Independent ‘Books of the Year’, 28 November 1999
‘A newly-published Bible to literary Norfolk’ Eastern Daily Press, 28 October 1998
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