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For most of us, some of our earliest "memories" of England came from literature. If you're literary minded, you can track down several places in England associated with your favorite British authors. Even if you stay in London for your entire trip, you can do some literary sleuthing. Blue plaques on London buildings identify the abodes of famous writers and artists. Some of England's most famous poets, novelists, and playwrights are buried or commemorated in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey.
Jane Austen
In Bath, you can see the house Jane Austen occupied and visit the Jane Austen Centre, a museum dedicated to her life and times.
After her father's death, Austen lived in the quiet village of Chawton with her mother and sister. The Jane Austen House, which you can visit, is a small red-brick dwelling that her wealthy brother Edward gave her. In this house, she began revising her earlier drafts of Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice. You can pay your respects at Austen's grave in Winchester Cathedral.
Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë
A trip to Haworth in Yorkshire brings you to the Brontë Parsonage Museum, home of that trio of sibling scribes. The windswept moors that figure so prominently in Emily's Wuthering Heights and Charlotte's Jane Eyre surround the town, which markets the Brontë name in every conceivable way.
Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens moved around constantly, but in London, you can visit the Charles Dickens Museum, located in the house where he penned Oliver Twist, The Pickwick Papers, and Nicholas Nickleby. The museum contains the world's most comprehensive Dickens library, plus portraits, illustrations, and rooms furnished as they were in his lifetime.
Henry James (and E. F. Benson)
Novelist Henry James was an American, but he loved England so much that he became a British citizen, living first in London and then in Sussex. Lamb House, his last home, is just one of many reasons to visit the beautiful Sussex town of Rye. (E.F. Benson, who wrote the Mapp and Lucia novels, later owned Lamb House.)
Beatrix Potter
When famed children's-book writer and illustrator Beatrix Potter was 16, her parents rented a summer house in the Lake District and Beatrix fell in love with the beautiful countryside. Many years later, when The Tale of Peter Rabbit sold 50,000 copies, she bought Hill Top, her house in Near Sawrey, close to Lake Windermere. The house is now open to the public. Potter's illustrations and watercolors are on display at the Beatrix Potter Gallery in nearby Hawkshead. Over the years, Beatrix Potter used her earnings to buy thousands of acres in the Lake District. She wanted the countryside that had so inspired her to be preserved for future generations, and she left it all to the National Trust.
William Shakespeare
England's most famous literary pilgrimage site is Stratford-upon-Avon, where you can visit the homes occupied by William Shakespeare and his family. Before visiting Shakespeare's Birthplace, on Henley Street, spend a few minutes in the adjacent Shakespeare Centre, where exhibits illustrate the life and times of this Elizabethan genius. Anne Hathaway's Cottage is about a mile south of Stratford.
A relatively prosperous Shakespeare retired to New Place on Chapel Street; the only part that remains is the garden. Shakespeare and his family are buried in Holy Trinity Church. About 5.5km north of Stratford is Mary Arden's House.
William Wordsworth
When William Wordsworth died in 1850 at the age of 80, he was poet laureate of England and perhaps the world's most famous poet. Wordsworth is closely associated with the Lake District, where he lived most of his life.
Wordsworth composed most of his greatest poems in Dove Cottage, Grasmere, where he lived between 1799 and 1808. In 1813, Wordsworth moved his family to Rydal Mount, a much grander house between Ambleside and Grasmere. He and other family members are buried in the churchyard of Grasmere Parish Church.
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