Literary Exe
Devon played a formative role in the life of the young Charles Dickens. He thought of Exeter as: “the most beautiful in this most beautiful of English counties” and penned the opening chapters of Nicholas Nickleby from his parents' cottage in riverside Alphington. Many of the curious characters he encountered in Devon shaped the future characters of his fiction, including the unusual Mr Pecksniff (Martin Chuzzlewit) who was based on a resident of Topsham.
Jane Austen is not often associated with the South West coast. However, an early holiday in Devon led to her first novel, Sense and Sensibility, which is based in the tranquil town of Upton Pyne - upstream from Exeter.
Exmouth was the much loved home of novelist R.K. Delderfield, author of the well-received titles To Serve them all my Days and A Horseman Riding By.
contact us
print page