"Thomas Hardy's Wessex The English author Thomas Hardy set all of his major novels in the south and southwest of England. He named the area ""Wessex"" after the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom that existed in this part of that country prior to the unification of England by Æthelstan. Although the places that appear in his novels actually exist, in many cases he gave the place a fictional name. For example, Hardy's home town of Dorchester is called Casterbridge in his books, notably in ""The Mayor of Casterbridge"". In an 1895 preface to the novel ""Far From the Madding Crowd"" he described"
"Weymouth Sands Weymouth Sands was written by John Cowper Powys in rural upper New York State and published in February 1934 in New York City by Simon and Schuster. It was published in Britain as Jobber Skald in 1935 by John Lane. ""Weymouth Sands"" was the third of John Cowper Powys's so-called Wessex novels, which include ""Wolf Solent"" (1929), ""A Glastonbury Romance"" (1932), and ""Maiden Castle"" (1936). Powys was an admirer of novelist and poet Thomas Hardy, and these novels are set in Somerset and Dorset, part of Hardy's mythical Wessex. American scholar Richard Maxwell describes these four novels ""as"
"book, then stopped it – mainly because I felt that his story ended in ""Heretic"" and I was just trying to get too much from him. Which doesn't mean I won't pick the idea up again sometime in the future."" Cornwell's latest series focuses on the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex, England during the 9th-century reign of Alfred the Great, his fierce opposition to the Danes and his determination to unite England as one country. The series, as of 2018, has eleven books. Cornwell's thrillers are modern mysteries, all with sailing themes. He is a traditional sailor and enjoys sailing his"
"man. He has a placid wife, Dora, and two daughters, Sheila and Sylvia. He has a good relationship with Sheila (his favourite) but a difficult relationship with Sylvia (who feels slighted though he has never actually intended to slight her). He also has a strong friendship with DI Mike Burden. The Wexford series of novels are set in ""Kingsmarkham"", a fictional town in Sussex. Kingsmarkham has been reported as ""inspired by Midhurst in West Sussex"". Inspector Wexford Chief Inspector Reginald ""Reg"" Wexford is a recurring character in a series of detective novels by English crime writer Ruth Rendell. He made"
"based on 'the latest historical research.' Conscience of the King Conscience of the King (1951) is an historical novel by British author Alfred Duggan based on the life of Cerdic Elesing, founder of the Kingdom of Wessex. It begins 40 years after the events covered in The Little Emperors (also 1951), set during the last years of Roman Britain from 406-410 CE. His later novel The King of Athelney (1962) concerns one of Cerdic's most famous descendants, Alfred the Great. The story begins with Cerdic's birth in 451 CE, ending shortly before his death in 534 CE. Britain now consists"
"while the novelist Hammond Innes (1913–98) was born in Horsham. In addition there are writers, who while they were not born in Sussex had a strong connection. This includes William Blake (1757–1827), who moved to Felpham in 1800 on the advice of Sussex poet William Hayley (1745-1820). Tried and cleared of the crime of sedition at the county court of Quarter Sessions in 1804, Blake returned to London later that year. One of Victorian England's most famous poets Alfred Tennyson (1809–92) spent his summers, away from the holiday crowds of the Isle of Wight, at Aldworth House, Blackdown, which he"
"best-loved works are set in the imaginary west country county of Barsetshire, including ""The Warden"" (1855) and ""Barchester Towers"" (1857). Trollope's novels portray the lives of the landowning and professional classes of early Victorian England. George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans (1819–80) was a major novelist of the mid-Victorian period. Her works, especially ""Middlemarch"" 1871-2), are important examples of literary realism, and are admired for their combination of high Victorian literary detail, with an intellectual breadth that removes them from the narrow geographic confines they often depict, that has led to comparisons with Tolstoy. George Meredith (1828–1909) is best remembered for"
"open to the public. Hardy is buried in Westminster Abbey, but his heart was removed and buried in Stinsford. William Barnes, the West Country dialect poet, was Rector of Winterborne Came, a hamlet near Dorchester, for 24 years until his death in 1886, and ran a school in the town. There are statues of both Barnes and Hardy in the town centre; Barnes outside St. Peter's Church, and Hardy's beside the Top o' Town crossroads. John Cowper Powys's novel ""Maiden Castle"" (1936) is set in Dorchester and Powys intended it to be ""a Rival of the ""Mayor of Casterbridge"". Powys"
"is set in Dorchester, Hardy's Casterbridge, and was intended by Powys to be a ""rival"" to Hardy's ""The Mayor of Casterbridge"". ""Maiden Castle"" is the last of Powys's so-called Wessex novels, ""Wolf Solent"" (1929), ""A Glastonbury Romance"" (1932), and ""Weymouth Sands"" (1934), which are set in Somerset and Dorset. Hardy was clearly the starting point for the character of the novelist Edward Driffield in W. Somerset Maugham's novel ""Cakes and Ale"" (1930). Thomas Hardy's works also feature prominently in the American playwright Christopher Durang's ""The Marriage of Bette and Boo"" (1985), in which a graduate thesis analysing ""Tess of the"
"Dorset. It features government agencies such as Wessex Police and Wessex Crown Court, and several characters are seen attending South Wessex Secondary School. Wessex Wessex (; , the ""kingdom of the West Saxons"") was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom in the south of Great Britain, from 519 until England was unified by Æthelstan in the early 10th century. The Anglo-Saxons believed that Wessex was founded by Cerdic and Cynric, but this may be a legend. The two main sources for the history of Wessex are the ""Anglo-Saxon Chronicle"" and the ""West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List"", which sometimes conflict. Wessex became a Christian"
"their home county of Dorset and its neighbouring counties in the south and west of England. Hardy's Wessex excluded Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, but the city of Oxford, which he called ""Christminster"", was visited as part of Wessex in ""Jude the Obscure"". He gave each of his Wessex counties a fictionalised name, such as with Berkshire, which is known in the novels as ""North Wessex"". The film ""Shakespeare in Love"" included a character called ""Lord Wessex"" – a title which did not exist in Elizabethan times. The ITV television series ""Broadchurch"" takes place in the Wessex area, primarily the county of"
"regional literature genre, which are set in the borderlands of Sussex and Kent. Other writers from Sussex include Maureen Duffy and Hammond Innes. In addition there are writers, who while they were not born in Sussex had a strong connection. This includes William Blake and Alfred Tennyson. Sussex has been home to four winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature: Rudyard Kipling spent much of his life in Sussex, living in Rottingdean and later at Burwash. Irishman W.B. Yeats spent three winters living with American poet Ezra Pound at Colemans Hatch in the Ashdown Forest and towards the end of"
"and takes in along the route such villages and towns as Bere Regis, Lulworth Cove, Corfe Castle, Shaftesbury, Evershot and the county town, Dorchester. Hardy Way The Hardy Way is a waymarked long-distance footpath in southern England in the United Kingdom. The route runs for 354 km or 220 miles. The route is named for the writer Thomas Hardy and runs through Thomas Hardy's Wessex, his version of Wessex, the region of the West Country of England portrayed in his books, such as ""Tess of the d'Urbervilles"", ""The Mayor of Casterbridge"", ""Far From the Madding Crowd"", ""Jude the Obscure"" and"
"to get closer to her bones. Dorset is famed in English literature for being the native county of novelist and poet Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), and many of the places he describes in his novels in the fictional Wessex are in Dorset, which he renamed ""South Wessex"". The National Trust owns Thomas Hardy's Cottage, in woodland east of Dorchester, and Max Gate, his former house in Dorchester, Dorset. Several other writers have been influenced by the Dorset landscape, including P. D. James whose novel ""The Black Tower"" was inspired by Clavell Tower in Kimmeridge; and Enid Blyton who spent many holidays"
"""Lady Godiva of Coventry"" (1955), by Norman Rodway in the BBC TV series ""Churchill's People"" (1974–75), and by Bill Wallis in an episode of the British educational TV series ""Historyonics"" entitled ""1066"" (2004). Godwin is also the lead character of Justin Hill's novel, ""Shieldwall"" (2011). Godwin, Earl of Wessex Godwin of Wessex (; d. 15 April 1053) was one of the most powerful earls in England under the Danish king Cnut the Great and his successors. Cnut made him the first Earl of Wessex. Godwin was the father of King Harold Godwinson and Edith of Wessex, wife of King Edward"
"books. As well as the Bucks/Oxon area and the village of Washford, Somerset where Cleeve Abbey is situated, several books are set in parts of Sussex, Wales, Lancashire, the English Lake District and Scotland. Naturally these are not always depicted exactly as their real counterparts; Oxenham was writing fiction, and if she could move an abbey nearly 200 miles for her purposes, surely changing a few names and telescoping or stretching distances was also well within her remit. Abbey Series The Abbey Series of British novels by Elsie J. Oxenham comprises 38 titles which were published between 1914 and 1959."
"A Dream of Wessex A Dream of Wessex is a 1977 science fiction novel by British writer Christopher Priest. In the United States it was released under the title ""The Perfect Lover"". ""A Dream of Wessex"" can be read as a straightforward story about a group of twentieth-century dreamers who create a consensus virtual-reality future. Once they enter their imaginary world they are unable to remember who they are, or where they are from. On another level, the novel is itself an extended metaphor for the way in which extrapolated futures are created. The year is 1985. The Wessex Project,"
"Hardy Way The Hardy Way is a waymarked long-distance footpath in southern England in the United Kingdom. The route runs for 354 km or 220 miles. The route is named for the writer Thomas Hardy and runs through Thomas Hardy's Wessex, his version of Wessex, the region of the West Country of England portrayed in his books, such as ""Tess of the d'Urbervilles"", ""The Mayor of Casterbridge"", ""Far From the Madding Crowd"", ""Jude the Obscure"" and others. It starts at Higher Bockhampton, where Hardy was born, and finishes at Stinsford churchyard, where Hardy's heart lies buried. It passes through Dorset"
"associated with specific regions of England; these include Charles Dickens (London), Thomas Hardy (Wessex), A. E. Housman (Shropshire), and the Lake Poets (the Lake District). In the lighter vein, Agatha Christie's mystery novels are outsold only by Shakespeare and The Bible. Described as ""perhaps the 20th century's best chronicler of English culture"", the non-fiction works of George Orwell include ""The Road to Wigan Pier"" (1937), documenting his experience of working class life in the north of England. Orwell's eleven rules for making tea appear in his essay ""A Nice Cup of Tea"", which was published in the ""London Evening Standard"""
"gained credit for renewing interest in the Middle Ages. Many well-known writers from the United Kingdom published historical novels in the mid 19th century, the most notable include Thackeray's ""Vanity Fair"", Charles Dickens's ""A Tale of Two Cities"", George Eliot's ""Romola"" and Charles Kingsley's ""Westward Ho!"" and ""Hereward the Wake"". ""The Trumpet-Major"" (1880) is Thomas Hardy's only historical novel, and is set in Weymouth during the Napoleonic wars; when the town was then anxious about the possibility of invasion by Napoleon. In the United States, James Fenimore Cooper was a prominent author of historical novels who was influenced by Scott."
"then Mercia had remained the preferred term, as the quote from Trevisa above would indicate. John Bateman, writing in 1876 or 1883, referred to contemporary Cheshire and Staffordshire landholdings as being in Mercia. The most credible source for the idea of a contemporary Mercia is Thomas Hardy's Wessex novels. The first of these appeared in 1874 and Hardy himself considered it the origin of the conceit of a contemporary Wessex. Bram Stoker set his 1911 novel ""The Lair of the White Worm"" in a contemporary Mercia that may have been influenced by Hardy, whose secretary was a friend of Stoker's"
"the Galaxy"" while he lived in Stalbridge; John le Carré, author of espionage novels, was born in Poole; Tom Sharpe of ""Wilt"" fame lived in Bridport; John Fowles (""The French Lieutenant's Woman"") lived in Lyme Regis before he died in late 2005; T.F. Powys lived in Chaldon Herring for over 20 years and used it as inspiration for the fictitious village of Folly Down in his novel ""Mr. Weston's Good Wine""; John Cowper Powys, his elder brother, also set a number of his works in Dorset, such as the novels ""Maiden Castle"" and ""Weymouth Sands"". The 19th-century poet William Barnes"
"S. M. Stirling's 2007 novel, ""The Sunrise Lands"", it is revealed that the British capital has been moved to Winchester. Winchester is an important setting in The Saxon Stories by Bernard Cornwell. Frank Turner (singer-songwriter) who was raised in the nearby village of Meonstoke (part of the City of Winchester district), wrote and performs the song ""Wessex Boy"" describing Winchester, and how it remains his home. He names the Cathedral, the Buttercross and Jewry Street in his homage to the city. Winchester is twinned with: The Winchester district is twinned with Winchester, Virginia, is named after the English city, whose"
"""Off Wessex"". Similarly, the nature and significance of ideas of ""Wessex"" were developed over a long series of novels through a lengthy period of time. The idea of Wessex plays an important artistic role in Hardy's works (particularly his later novels), assisting the presentation of themes of progress, primitivism, sexuality, religion, nature and naturalism; however, this is complicated by the economic role Wessex played in Hardy's career. Considering himself primarily to be a poet, Hardy wrote novels mostly to earn money. Books that could be marketed under the Hardy brand of ""Wessex novels"" were particularly lucrative, which gave rise to"
"Conscience of the King Conscience of the King (1951) is an historical novel by British author Alfred Duggan based on the life of Cerdic Elesing, founder of the Kingdom of Wessex. It begins 40 years after the events covered in The Little Emperors (also 1951), set during the last years of Roman Britain from 406-410 CE. His later novel The King of Athelney (1962) concerns one of Cerdic's most famous descendants, Alfred the Great. The story begins with Cerdic's birth in 451 CE, ending shortly before his death in 534 CE. Britain now consists of small states battling each other"
"the Devil's Foot"" featuring Sherlock Holmes is set in Cornwall. Winston Graham's series ""Poldark"", Kate Tremayne's Adam Loveday series, Susan Cooper's novels ""Over Sea, Under Stone"" and ""Greenwitch"", and Mary Wesley's ""The Camomile Lawn"" are all set in Cornwall. Writing under the pseudonym of Alexander Kent, Douglas Reeman sets parts of his Richard Bolitho and Adam Bolitho series in the Cornwall of the late 18th and the early 19th centuries, particularly in Falmouth. Hammond Innes's novel, ""The Killer Mine""; Charles de Lint's novel ""The Little Country""; and Chapters 24 and 25 of J. K. Rowling's ""Harry Potter and the Deathly"
"Powys, he hates science and modern inventions like cars and planes, and is attracted to slender, androgynous women. ""Wolf Solent"" is the first of Powys's four Wessex novels. Powys wrote both about the same region as Thomas Hardy and was a twentieth-century successor to the great nineteenth-century novelist. The novel is set in the fictional towns of Ramsgard, Dorset, based on Sherborne, Dorset, where Powys attended school from May 1883, and Blacksod, modelled on Yeovil, Somerset, as well as other places in Dorset like Dorchester and Weymouth that were also full of memories for Powys. ""Wolf Solent"" was Powys's first"
"poet, was born and lived in Berkhamsted. He was later institutionalised in an asylum in St Albans. Charles Dickens (1812–1870) was often in Hertfordshire (not least to visit his friend Edward Bulwer Lytton, who is mentioned below), and significant elements of his novels are set there. Sir Richard Fanshawe (1608–1666) was born at Ware Park and his memorial tablet is in Ware. E. M. Forster (1879-?) lived at Rook's Nest House between Stevenage and Weston. William Godwin (1756–1836), an anarchist philosopher, was a Chapel Minister in Ware; his feminist wife Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797), author of A Vindication of the Rights"
"and it is featured in ""The Well-Beloved"" (1897). Joseph Drew wrote a historical novel ""The Poisoned Cup"" ""a quaint tale of old Weymouth and Sandsfoot Castle"" (1876), ""The Rival Queens"", an account of the life of Mary Queen of Scots (1880), and several other popular works on religion, history and science. The novelist John Cowper Powys's novel ""Weymouth Sands"" (1934) is set in Weymouth, where he ""was more ""at home"" than anywhere else in the world"". Powys's paternal grandmother lived in Weymouth and the family lived in nearby Dorchester from 1880 to 1885. The novelist Gerald Basil Edwards spent the"
"British regional literature The setting is particularly important in regional literature. In literature regionalism refers to fiction or poetry that focuses on specific features, such as dialect, customs, history, and landscape, of a particular region (also called ""local colour""): ""Such a locale is likely to be rural and/or provincial."" Thomas Hardy's (1840–1928) novels can be described as regional because of the way he makes use of these elements in relation to a part of the West of England, that he names Wessex. On the other hand, it seems much less appropriate to describe Charles Dickens (1812–1870) as a regional novelist"
"Chronicles of Barsetshire The Chronicles of Barsetshire is a series of six novels by the English author Anthony Trollope, set in the fictitious English county of Barsetshire and its cathedral town of Barchester. The novels concern the dealings of the clergy and the gentry, and the political, amatory, and social manœuvrings that go on among and between them. Of the six novels, the second in the series, ""Barchester Towers"", is generally the best known, while the last was Trollope's own favourite. Together, the series is regarded by many as Trollope's finest work. The novels in the series are: Nathaniel Hawthorne"
"a ""rival"" to Hardy's ""Mayor of Casterbridge"". Mary Butts was a modernist novelist who works are also associated with the idea of Wessex. ""Like [John Cowper] Powys, she found a key to both personal and national identity by tuning into the deep history of the Dorset landscape [with emphasis on] sacred places and folk traditions"". The regional novel is generally seen as originating with Maria Edgeworth and Walter Scott, but their regions are hardily ""comparable to Hardy's Wessex, Blackmore's Exmoor, or Arnold Bennett's potteries, [... because] they are nations."" The term has also been used, in the past, disparagingly, especially"
"novel are real places, from Shrewsbury Abbey and Oswestry to St Asaph, Aber, Bangor, Abermenai and the many stops between Cadfael's home at the Abbey and his homeland of North Wales. Hugh Beringar's manor at Maesbury is said to be between the two great dykes built by Mercian kings to mark the border of their territory with Powys in the 8th century; the westernmost being the larger, known as Offa's dyke. The Menai Strait makes Anglesey an island. Much of the action of the novel takes place along it. Bangor is adjacent to it on the mainland of Wales at"