A Literary Atlas & Gazetteer of the British Isles

UK: David & Charles. Very Good/Very Good. 1973. First Edition. Hard Cover. 4to 0715359231 Dust jacket complete, unclipped. Brown cloth with bright gilt titling on spine. Maps by Alan G. Hodgkiss. 216 pages clean and tight. Every schoolboy and girl knows that Gray wrote his Elegy at Stoke Poges but probably not everyone knows that Sir Edward Coke, the first Lord Chief Justice and formative legal writer lived in nearby Stoke Place in the seventeenth century. And if you were passing through Crosthwaite in Cumberland, would you remember that Southey lies buried there? These are typical of some 4,500 entries that make this atlas-gazetteer a perfect reference book for the traveller with literary interests and time to spare. It is an exhaustive guide to the United Kingdom's literary associations, providing the basic biographical facts. All the entries are arranged conveniently under counties and their towns and villages and each is keyed into the relevant maps which are printed in two colours and drawn by A. G. Hodgkiss. The atlas will also serve the busy reference librarian faced with an urgent inquiry, the biographer contemplating the scope of a potential subject and the local journalist seeking a signpost to a writer worth writing about. The literary-minded browser, too, is likely to be stimulated and, far from least, the tourist, whether from abroad or from Britain, will be able to explore on the ground the places associated with his favourite writers. Michael Hardwick, author, playwright, and journalist, is well-known both in Britain and North America for his studies in English literature. His many 'companions' to the works of famous authors such as Dickens, Conan Doyle, G. Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde are especially popular, as are his essays in literary topography. He draws on many years of research in compiling the book. A. G. Hodgkiss is cartographer to the Department of Geography at the University of Liverpool and author of Maps for Books and Theses. .