The Oxford Illustrated Literary Guide to Great Britain and Ireland

Oxford University Press, London, first illustrated edition, 1981. Cloth, 4to,. 312 pp, [5] pp, 13maps, numerous ills. From the blurb: "This reference book is a companion to the literary associations of places from Abbotsford (Sir Walter Scott's house in the Scottish border country) to Zennor (the Cornish village where D. H. Lawrence and his wife lived in 1916 and 1917). Buildings of all kinds, including some that must be forlornly described as 'gone', as well as towns, villages, and districts, are included, and there are cross-references for fictitious names of real places. When the first edition was published in 1977 Robert Nye described it in the Scotsman as 'a lovely book in which to dip and dream', a sentiment shared by reviewers and readers all over the world. Many people have written to the editors with suggestions for places or authors to be included, and many have regretted the absence of illustrations.This new, illustrated edition appears in a larger format, with improved maps and much new material. Writers of recent times, like Gavin Maxwell at Sandaig, A. A. Milne in Ashdown Forest, and J. R. R. Tolkien in Birmingham, have been given more space. Living authors are still excluded, but altogether 58 new places and 44 new authors have been added, bringing the total number of entries on places to 1,232 and authors to 913. The illustrations include portraits of writers, pictures of buildings as they are today and of others that have long since disappeared, landscapes connected with writers and their works, one or two libraries, and an occasional detail from a manuscript.There is a fascination about places associated with writers that has often prompted readers to become pilgrims, say the authors. This book will help both armchair pilgrims and travellers, as one reviewer of the first edition put it, 'to wallow unashamedly in a rich nostalgia for what is called our literary heritage'. Very Good in near Very Good price-clipped dustwrapper.