• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Meg Waite Clayton

Author of the international bestsellers The Postmistress of Paris, The Last Train to London, and 6 other novels

  • Meg
    • Bio
    • Short Works
    • Meg’s Writing Process
    • Favorite Bookstores
  • Books
    • The Postmistress of Paris
    • The Last Train to London
    • Beautiful Exiles
    • The Race for Paris
    • The Wednesday Sisters
    • The Four Ms. Bradwells
    • The Language of Light
    • The Wednesday Daughters
    • International Editions
  • Events
  • News
  • Videos
  • Bookgroups
    • The Postmistress of Paris
    • The Last Train to London
    • The Race For Paris
    • The Wednesday Sisters
    • The Four Ms. Bradwells
    • The Language of Light
    • The Wednesday Daughters
    • My Bookclubs
  • Writing Tips
    • Tips for Writers
    • How Writers Get Started
    • On Agent Queries
    • Publishing Tips
  • Contact

June 13, 2013 By Meg Waite Clayton

6 Weeks in the English Lakes #2: A Literary Map

If you don’t know where the English Lakes are, pull out your trusty map of England and look as far north and west as you can. (Go too far, and you’ll end up in Scotland.) To give you an idea of just how beautiful the Lakes are, when Elizabeth Bennett in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is invited by her aunt to travel with the idea of going perhaps as far as the Lake District, she “rapturously” cries, “My dear, dear aunt, what delight! what felicity! You give me fresh life and vigour! Adieu to disappointment and spleen. What are men to rocks and mountains? Oh! what hours of transport we shall spend!”
WindermereLiteraryMap_edited-1I think the passage may count for the majority of exclamation points in the book. Things take a sad turn for poor Lizzie, though, and she gets no further than Pemberley, in Derbyshire.
But two real-life literary heroes not only made it to the Lake District, but stayed for the rest of their lives. Both lived near Lake Windermere.
The poet Wordsworth’s first Lake District home was the very modest Dove Cottage in Grasmere, on a small lake northwest of Windermere. When he became more prosperous, he moved to nearby Rydal Mount, above Rydal Water and a little closer to Ambleside and Windermere.
Peter Rabbit author Beatrix Potter lived to the west of the lake, first at Hill Top Farm in Near Sawrey, and after she married, at Castle Cottage there. She regularly crossed on the ferry to visit her parents on the other side of the lake, and she often painted real elements of her neighborhood into the illustrations in her books. Her husband was a solicitor in Hawkeshead, and both Near Sawrey and Hawkeshead remain rich with her art and the things of her life. The photo below is of the tarn on her property, where she and her husband rowed together on summer nights. – Meg
Beatrix Potter's Moss Eccles Tarn in the English Lake District; photo by Meg Waite Clayton

Share:

Filed Under: Literary Travel, Meg's Posts, Writing Quotes and Other Literary Fun Tagged With: English Lake District

Meg Waite Clayton


Meg Waite Clayton is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of eight novels, including the Good Morning America Buzz pick and New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice THE POSTMISTRESS OF PARIS, the National Jewish Book Award finalist THE LAST TRAIN TO LONDON, the Langum-Prize honored THE RACE FOR PARIS, and THE WEDNESDAY SISTERS, one of Entertainment Weekly’s 25 Essential Best Friend Novels of all time. Her novels have been published in 23 languages. She has also written more than 100 pieces for major newspapers, magazines, and public radio, mentors in the OpEd Project, and is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and the California bar. megwaiteclayton.com

Primary Sidebar

Categories

  • Book Marketing Tips (23)
  • Bookstores worth Browsing (33)
  • Guest Authors (66)
  • How a Book Gets Published (32)
  • Literary Travel (4)
  • Meg's Posts (376)
  • Poetry Tuesdays (15)
  • Publishing Tips (19)
  • Top Writing Tips (10)
  • Uncategorized (4)
  • Writing Quotes and Other Literary Fun (115)
  • Writing Tips (62)

Archives

Footer

Post Archives

Follow Meg on Goodreads

Follow

  • Facebook
  • Instagram

Copyright © 2023 Meg Waite Clayton · Site design: Ilsa Brink