A richly illustrated guide to the literature and landscape of Norfolk
One of the places featured in Literary Norfolk
The 'vast flat land' of Fritton, on the Norfolk Broads, where eccentric and prolific Victorian author James Blyth wrote his marshland novels.
A unique geographical feature and the result of centuries-old peat digging, The Broads are as rich in writing as they are in wildlife and tourism. Scent the 'atmosphere of powder and shot' in Oliver G Ready's Life and Sport on the Norfolk Broads (1910) or go fly-fishing with writer and lawyer George Christopher Davies. Hide away at Fritton with Victorian novelist James Blyth and watch through the reeds for 'invisible boats moving on invisible waters' with Armadale (1866) author Wilkie Collins. Find inspiration from above in Jan Mark's Thunder and Lightnings (1976) and discover 'anything or nothing' happening at Oby with Sylvia Townsend Warner. Find 'a piece of land to feel secure on' here with poet George MacBeth or sail into the 'reedy wastes' of Potter Heigham with C P Snow. Go ghost-hunting at Ranworth with Gladys Mitchell or explore the 'thick air' of poet Peter Scupham's South Burlingham manor house in The Ark (1994). At Wroxham, watch out for the washes of the reckless 'Hullabaloos' in Arthur Ransome's Coot Club (1934), or proceed 'Gently' downstream with Alan Hunter's detective novels.
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