Lancaster is a city full of literary connections and, on our day of being tourists, we passed a number of blue plaques.
In September 1857 Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins set out on a Northern Tour and, on their return, stayed at the Kings Arms Hotel. Under the names of Mr Francis Goodchild and Mr Thomas Idle they published The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices:
"Mr. Goodchild concedes Lancaster to be a pleasant place. A place dropped in the midst of a charming landscape, a place with a fine ancient fragment of castle, a place of lovely walks, a place possessing staid old houses richly fitted with old Honduras mahogany, which has grown so dark with time that it seems to have got something of a retrospective mirror-quality into itself....And Mr. Goodchild adds that the stones of Lancaster do sometimes whisper, even yet, of rich men passed away - upon whose great prosperity some of these old doorways frowned sullen in the brightest weather ..."
Laurence Binyon was born in High Street. His most famous poem For the Fallen is read aloud every November at Remembrance services:
L
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Another First World War poet - Siegfried Sassoon wrote The Redeemer, in which he uses Lancaster as a symbol of everything worth fighting for:
No thorny crown, only a woollen cap
He wore—an English soldier, white and strong,
Who loved his time like any simple chap,
Good days of work and sport and homely song;
Now he has learned that nights are very long,
And dawn a watching of the windowed sky.
But to the end, unjudging, he’ll endure
Horror and pain, not uncontent to die
That Lancaster on Lune may stand secure.
There are many other literary connections to Lancaster and the surrounding area. Daniel Defoe, on his visit to the city, declared "the town is ancient, it lies, as it were, in its own ruins, and has little to recommend it but a decayed castle". Sarah Siddons performed on the stage of the Grand Theatre, and Charles Dickens, again in 1861, performed passages from The Pickwick Papers and A Christmas Carol at the Grand Theatre. Ann Radcliffe, William Wordsworth, Elizabeth Gaskell and Thomas Gray all crossed the Sands near Lancaster and wrote about their experiences.
Many children's novelists included Lancaster in their stories. Agnes Furlong's The School Library Mystery is set in Lancaster, the fictionalised Lonchester. Elsie J Oxenham and Angela Brazil's characters often pass through Lancaster on their way to exciting destinations. And there are many more references to the city. I'm looking forward to finding out more.