Lawrence’s savage pilgrimage started in Europe, spent most of his time trying to find a place to live contentedly. On leaving Europe he travelled to Sri Lanka, Australia and then the west coast of America. ibid.
Southern Italy has inspired a wealth of amazing authors … Elena Ferrante: My Brilliant Friend [Naples] … Charles Dickens: Pictures from Italy … Robert Harris: Pompeii … Patricia Highsmith: The Talented Mr Ripley … Carlo Levi: Christ Stopped at Eboli. Write Around the World with Richard E Grant I, Italy, BBC 2021
150 years ago Robert Louis Stevenson, the author of Kidnapped and Treasure Island travelled 120 miles across this region [southern France] on foot with only a donkey for company. Write Around the World with Richard E Grant II: Southern France
Umberto Eco: The Count of Monte Cristo … F Scott Fitzgerald … Carol Drinkwater: The Olive Farm … Elizabeth David … Patrick Suskind: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer … ibid.
Granada: The city that inspired one of Spain’s most acclaimed figures … Its most famous playwright and poet Federico Garcia Lorca who was born just outside the city. Write Around the World with Richard E Grant III
Victoria Hislop: The Return tackles the civil war and its aftermath … Chris Stewart … Ernest Hemingway: Born in 1899, Hemingway was passionate about Spain … Laurie Lee: A lifelong love affair with this country … J G Ballard: Cocaine Nights. ibid.
Walter Scott remains one of the world’s most famous writers. The pioneer of a new literary genre – historical fiction. He changed the way the world views Scotland and how Scots view ourselves. In Search of Sir Walter Scott, BBC 2021
There was no more quintessentially English writer than Agatha Christie. Through her sensational murder mysteries she created a literary universe that captured our national spirit like no-one before or since. The magical worlds where she set her stories are in fact drawn from real places. Agatha Christie’s England, Channel 5 2021
Born 1890 in the Devon town of Torquay. The youngest to three children she lived a charmed life thanks to her American father’s large inheritance. ibid.
She introduced the world to Miss Marple when she published The Murder at the Vicarage. ibid.
In 1920 Agatha published her debut novel: The Mysterious Affair at Styles. The lead character was the now iconic Belgium detective Hercule Poirot. ibid.
‘Agatha absolutely abhorred the loss of empire, the changing attitudes to British dominance over the world. This big change in social values, the class system.’ ibid. J C Bernthal, Agatha Christie scholar
Arguably the biggest writer of the Twentieth Century. ibid.
Shakespeare lived in an age when writing was a dangerous game. Christopher Marlowe was murdered. Thomas Kyd was tortured. Ed Johnson was thrown into jail. Simon Schama’s Shakespeare II: Hollow Crowns BBC 2012
It is nice that nobody writes as they talk and that the printed language is different from the spoken otherwise you could not lose yourself in books and of course you completely do. Gertrude Stein
I don’t care what is written about me so long as it isn’t true. Dorothy Parker
It was written without fear and without research. Dorothy Parker, reviewing book on science
I have trusted to my intuition to find the subjects, and I have written intuitively. I have an idea when I start, I have a shape; but I will fully understand what I have written only after some years. V S Naipaul
Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams were two of the most famous American writers of their time. For more than forty years, these two giants of American literature goaded and supported one another in the agonizing quest to turn life into art. Truman and Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation, captions, 2020
‘I am very personable as a writer. I don’t mean to be. I just am. Unavoidable.’ ibid. Williams, David Frost Show
Both writers earned public acclaim early in their careers: Tennessee with The Glass Managerie in 1945 and Truman with Other Voices, Other Rooms in 1948. Praise and accolades followed throughout the ’50s. ibid. caption
Primarily, I am a city fellow. I like pavement, the sound of my shoes on pavement, stuffed windows, all-night restaurants, sirens in the night, sinister but alive. ibid. Capote
‘You don’t write for history; you write to express yourself.’ ibid. Williams
Tennessee Williams died in 1983 at the age of 71 due to an overdose of barbiturates; Truman Capote died 18 months later at the age of 59 from complications of alcoholism. They both suffered from depression and addiction. ibid. caption
Good writers are those who keep the language efficient. That is to say keep it accurate, keep it clear. Ezra Pound
The Hittite language was written in a series of triangular shaped signs called cuniform, one of the world’s oldest writing systems. Lost Cities of the Ancients: The Dark Side of Hattusha, BBC 2012