Monday
7th April 2003, 1400 BST
Find out about Berkshire's Literary Connections |
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Late
November 1919, and T E Lawrence (alias Lawrence of Arabia)
changes trains at Reading station. The bag containing the only copy
of the first draft of his spectacular book Seven Pillars of Wisdom
is stolen and never recovered. |
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In
1785-1786 Jane Austen went to the Abbey School in Reading with
her sister Cassandra. The school, in Kendrick Road, bears some resemblance
to Mrs Goddard's Casual School
in Emma.
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One
of the inspirations for Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles
is said to have been the forbidding gates at Crowsley Park in Sonning
Common.
The gates still bear the menacing dog's heads biting what look like
spears. |
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Kenneth
Grahame, author of Wind in the Willows, was and later lived in
Pangbourne.
He didn't write the classic children's story there but much of its
setting is along the Thames in Mapledurham.
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Percy
Bysshe Shelley lived for a short time at both Windsor and Bracknell.
He studied at Eton and embarked on a river trip on the Thames in August
1815, which provided the inspiration for his short poem "Alastor".
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H.G.
Wells, author of classic novels such as The Time Machine, spent
his youth growing up with his uncle Tom, who kept the Surly Inn on
the Thames in Windsor.
His memories of punting on the Thames are captured in The History
of Mr Polly. |
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Watership
Down, written by Richard Adams, is a tale about the Sandleford
Warren rabbits, who come from south of Newbury in the Berkshire Downs.
Mr Adams was born in Newbury and was educated at Bradfield College.
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The
Great Expectations pub in Reading was formerly the Literary, Scientific
and Mechanics Institute, and Charles Dickens gave a public
reading at its opening in 1843.
Dickens was also almost persuaded to become the Liberal MP for Reading! |
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Joyce
Grove in Nettlebed, now the Sue Ryder palliative care home, once belonged
to the family of Ian Fleming, author of the world-famous James Bond
novels. His grandfather bought Joyce Grove in 1904 to increase his
Nettlebed estate.
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