Select Bibliography
This could go on a while, except I won’t let it. Instead, here are all the books mentioned in the text, plus a handful of others that were especially engrossing when I was researching and writing Footnotes. I’ve put the primary texts for each journey first.
General
AA, Illustrated Guide to Britain (Drive Publications, 1971)
Anderson, Sarah, Anderson’s Travel Companion: A Guide to the Best Non-fiction and Fiction for Travelling (Scholar Press, 1995)
Briggs, Katharine M., British Folk Tales and Legends: A Sampler (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977)
Chaudhuri, Nirad C., A Passage to England (Macmillan, 1959)
Crane, Nicholas, Great British Journeys (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2017)
Davidson, Peter, The Idea of North (Reaktion Books, 2005)
Drabble, Margaret, A Writer’s Britain (Thames & Hudson, 2009)
Grigson, Geoffrey, The Shell Country Alphabet: The Classic Guide to the British Countryside (Penguin Books, 1966)
Hibbert, Christopher, The English: A Social History 1066–1945 (Guild Publishing, 1987)
Holmes, Richard, Footsteps: Adventures of a Romantic Biographer (Penguin Books, 1985). I started here.
Ingrams, Richard (Ed.), England: An Anthology (Collins, 1990)
Ishiguro, Kazuo, The Buried Giant (Faber & Faber, 2015)
Kaufmann, Miranda, Black Tudors: The Untold Story (Oneworld Publications, 2017)
Klein, Naomi, This Changes Everything (Penguin Books, 2014)
Legget, Jane, Local Heroines: A Travel Guidebook to Women’s History in Great Britain (Pandora, 1988)
Macfarlane, Robert, The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot (Penguin Books, 2013)
McGarvey, Darren, Poverty Safari: Understanding the Anger of Britain’s Underclass (Luath Press, 2017)
Minshull, Duncan (Ed.), While Wandering: A Walking Companion (Vintage Books, 2014)
Monbiot, George, Feral: Rewilding the Land, Sea and Human Life (Allen Lane, 2013)
Montgomery, Charles, Happy City: Transforming Our Lives through Urban Design (Penguin Books, 2013)
Morley, Paul, The North (and Almost Everything In It) (Bloomsbury, 2013)
Morton, H. V., I Saw Two Englands (Methuen & Co., 1942)
Morton, H. V., In Search of England (Methuen & Co., 1927)
Morton, H. V., The Call of England (Methuen & Co., 1928)
Orwell, George, Inside the Whale and Other Essays (Penguin Books, 1957)
Orwell, George, The Road to Wigan Pier (Victor Gollancz, 1937)
Overy, Richard, The Morbid Age: Britain Between the Wars (Penguin Books, 2009)
Paxman, Jeremy, The English: A Portrait of a People (Penguin Group, 1998)
Priestley, J. B., The English (William Heinemann, 1973)
Roberts, Alice, The Celts: Search for a Civilisation (Heron Books, 2015)
Rutherford, Adam, A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Stories in Our Genes (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2016)
Schama, Simon, A History of Britain Vols. I–III (BBC Books, 2000–2002)
Schama, Simon, Landscape & Memory (HarperCollins, 1995)
Sheers, Owen, A Poet’s Guide to Britain (Penguin Books, 2010)
Stringer, Chris, Homo Britannicus: The Incredible Story of Human Life in Britain (Penguin Books, 2006)
Thomas, R. S., Collected Poems 1945–1990 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000)
Tombs, Robert, The English & Their History (Penguin Books, 2014)
Westwood, Jennifer and Simpson, Jacqueline, The Lore of the Land: A Guide to England’s Legends, from Spring-Heeled Jack to the Witches of Warboys (Penguin Books, 2005)
Wilson, A. N., The Victorians (Arrow Books, 2003)
Winder, Robert, The Last Wolf: The Hidden Springs of Englishness (Little, Brown, 2017)
Enid Blyton & Dorset
Enid Blyton wrote over 750 books. There’s as complete a list as you’d think possible at the Enid Blyton Society website (enidblytonsociety.co.uk) in the ‘Cave of Books’, which also includes a list of her journalism and poetry. My favourite has always been Five Go Adventuring Again.
Blyton, Enid, The Story of My Life (Pitkins, 1952)
Baverstock, Gillian, Enid Blyton (Evans Brothers, 1997)
Howard, Nesta and Underwood, Spencer, The Penguin Guide to Wilts and Dorset (Penguin Books, 1949)
Norman, Dr Andrew, Enid Blyton and Her Enchantment with Dorset (Halsgrove, 2005)
Pitt-Rivers, Michael, A Shell Guide to Dorset (Faber & Faber, 1935)
Pollock, Ida, Starlight: A Memoir (Authors Online, 2009)
Smallwood, Imogen, A Childhood at Green Hedges: A Fragment of Autobiography by Enid Blyton’s Daughter (Methuen Children’s Books, 1989)
Stoney, Barbara, Enid Blyton: The Biography (Hodder & Stoughton, 1974; Tempus Publishing, 2006)
Also, the film drama Enid (BBC, 2009)
Wilkie Collins, Ithell Colquhoun & Cornwall
Wilkie was prolific – the best places to start are The Moonstone and The Woman in White. There are books in print by Ithell Colquhoun at peterowen.com and psupress.org.
Collins, Wilkie, Rambles Beyond Railways (out of print; first published 1851)
Colquhoun, Ithell, The Living Stones (Peter Owen, 1957)
Ackroyd, Peter, Wilkie Collins (Vintage, 2013)
Betjeman, John, A Shell Guide to Cornwall (Faber & Faber, 1964)
Carey, Peter, The Chemistry of Tears (Faber & Faber, 2012)
Clarke, William M., The Secret Life of Wilkie Collins (Allison & Busby, 1988)
Gasson, Andrew, Wilkie Collins: An Illustrated Guide (Oxford University Press, 1998)
Jenkins, Elizabeth, The Mystery of King Arthur (Michael Joseph, 1975)
Lycett, Andrew, Wilkie Collins: A Life of Sensation (Windmill Books, 2014)
Peters, Catherine, The King of Inventors: A Life of Wilkie Collins (Secker & Warburg, 1991).
Smith, Laura, Tassi, Enrico and Bennett, Eloise, Virginia Woolf Exhibition Book (Tate Publishing, 2018)
Time Out Guide to Devon & Cornwall (Time Out Guides, 2012)
White, Paul, Druids in the South-West? (Bossiney Books, 2017)
White, Rupert, The Re-enchanted Landscape: Earth Mysteries, Paganism & Art in Cornwall 1950–2000 (Antenna Publications, 2017)
Celia Fiennes & the West Country
Fiennes, Celia, The Journeys of Celia Fiennes (Ed. Christopher Morris, Cresset Press, 1949)
Douglass, Frederick, My Bondage and My Freedom (Penguin Books, 2003)
Douglass, Frederick, The Portable Frederick Douglass (Penguin Books, 2016)
Fiennes, Celia and Morris, Christopher, The Illustrated Journeys of Celia Fiennes (Michael Joseph, 1988)
Gerald of Wales, Edith Somerville, Martin Ross & Wales
Gerald of Wales, The Journey Through Wales/The Description of Wales (Trans. by Lewis Thorpe, Penguin Books, 1978)
Somerville, E. Œ. and Ross, Martin, Beggars on Horseback: A Riding Tour in North Wales (out of print; William Blackwood & Sons, 1895)
Collis, Maurice, Somerville & Ross: A Biography (Faber & Faber, 1968)
Davies, John, A History of Wales (Penguin Books, 2007)
Griffith, Wyn, The Welsh (Penguin Books, 1950)
Jones, Gwyn and Ffowc Elis, Islwyn, Classic Welsh Short Stories (Oxford University Press, 1971)
Kightly, Charles, A Mirror of Medieval Wales: Gerald of Wales and His Journey of 1188 (Cadw: Welsh Historic Monuments, 1988)
Lewis, Gifford, Somerville and Ross: The World of the Irish R.M. (Viking, 1985)
Lewis, Gifford (Ed.), The Selected Letters of Somerville and Ross (Faber & Faber, 1989)
Rhys, John and Brynmor-Jones, David, The Welsh People (T. Fisher Unwin, 1906)
Somerville, E. Œ. and Ross, Martin, The Irish R.M. Complete (Faber & Faber, 1928)
Somerville, E. Œ. and Ross, Martin, The Real Charlotte (Capuchin Classics, 2011)
Somerville, E. Œ. and Ross, Martin, Wheel-Tracks (Longmans, Green & Co., 1923)
Williams, Gwyn A., When Was Wales? A History of the Welsh (Penguin Books, 1991)
J. B. Priestley & Beryl Bainbridge, the Midlands, the North & Lincoln
Bainbridge, Beryl, An Awfully Big Adventure (Duckworth, 1989)
Bainbridge, Beryl, English Journey or The Road to Milton Keynes (Duckworth/BBC, 1984)
Priestley, J. B., Bright Day (Penguin Books, 1946)
Priestley, J. B., English Journey (William Heinemann, 1934)
Cook, Judith, Priestley (Bloomsbury, 1997)
Dicky Sam, Liverpool and Slavery: An Historical Account of the Liverpool–Africa Slave Trade (A. Bowker & Son, 1884)
Gray, Dulcie, J. B. Priestley (Sutton Publishing, 2000)
Hughes, Psiche, Beryl Bainbridge: Artist, Writer, Friend (Thames & Hudson, 2012)
King, Brendan, Beryl Bainbridge: Love by All Sorts of Means (Bloomsbury, 2016)
Priestley, J. B., Delight (William Heinemann, 1949; Great Northern Books, 2018)
Priestley, J. B., Outcries and Asides (William Heinemann, 1974). Mustn’t grumble …
Priestley, J. B., Rain Upon Gadshill (William Heinemann, 1941)
Priestley, J. B., The Priestley Companion (Penguin Books, 1951)
Scott, Walter Dixon, Liverpool 1907 (A. & C. Black, 1907)
Charles Dickens & Wilkie Collins, the Lake District & the North
If you don’t know Dickens, I would start with Great Expectations. Or maybe Oliver Twist, David Copperfield or Nicholas Nickleby. Probably not Pickwick Papers. Certainly not Our Mutual Friend. Bleak House is also a good introduction, although Esther is irritating and the tone is undeniably … bleak. If the size of the novels is daunting, perhaps try a ghost story. The Signalman, for instance, has some classic Dickensian railway action.
Collins, Wilkie and Dickens, Charles, The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices (out of print; first published 1858)
Ackroyd, Peter, Dickens (Vintage, 2002)
Britton, John and Wedlake Brayley, Edward, The Beauties of England and Wales; or Delineations, Topographical, Historical, and Descriptive, of Each County, Vol. III (out of print; first published 1802)
James, C. L. R., Beyond a Boundary (Stanley Paul & Co., 1963; Serpent’s Tail, 1994)
James, C. L. R., Cricket (Allison & Busby, 1986)
Nayder, Lillian, Unequal Partners: Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, and Victorian Authorship (Cornell University Press, 2002)
Slater, Michael, Charles Dickens (Yale University Press, 2011)
Tomalin, Claire, Charles Dickens: A Life (Viking, 2011). Near definitive.
Tomalin, Claire, The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens (Viking, 1990)
Samuel Johnson & James Boswell, Scotland
All you really need is Boswell’s Life of Johnson.
Boswell, James, The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
Johnson, Samuel, A Journal to the Western Islands of Scotland (Penguin Books, 1984)
Bainbridge, Beryl, According to Queeney (Little, Brown, 2001)
Bone, Stephen, A Shell Guide to the West Coast of Scotland: Skye to Oban (B. T. Batsford, 1938)
Boswell, James, Everybody’s Boswell: Being the Life of Samuel Johnson (G. Bell & Sons, 1935)
Boswell, James, The Journals of James Boswell 1762–1795 (Yale University Press, 1991)
Boswell, James, The London Journal 1762–1763 (William Heinemann, 1950)
Delaney, Frank, A Walk to the Western Isles: After Boswell & Johnson (HarperCollins, 1994)
Dunn, Douglas, Scotland: An Anthology (HarperCollins, 1991)
Johnson, Samuel, The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia (Nonsuch Publishing, 2007)
Morton, H. V., In Search of Scotland (Methuen, 1929)
Nokes, David, Samuel Johnson, A Life (Faber & Faber, 2009)
Picard, Liza, Dr. Johnson’s London (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000)
Resources
General
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (oxforddnb.com): the first stop for any biographical enquiry.
Trees for Life (treesforlife.org.uk): support them!
Vision of Britain (visionofbritain.org.uk): holds the full texts of numerous journeys, including those of James Boswell, Celia Fiennes, Gerald of Wales and Samuel Johnson.
Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org): I would have been lost without it.
Beryl Bainbridge
Someone should set up a Beryl Bainbridge Society.
Enid Blyton
Enid Blyton (enidblyton.co.uk): the official website, run by Hachette, her publisher.
Enid Blyton Society (enidblytonsociety.co.uk): everything you ever needed to know. Run by super-fans (and questions answered by Barney the dog …).
Seven Stories: National Centre for Children’s Books (sevenstories.org.uk): based in Gateshead. Visit to view a collection of Enid’s diaries, letters, first editions and more.
James Boswell
Boswell Book Festival (boswellbookfestival.co.uk): a festival of biography in Ayrshire, run by the Boswell Trust.
Boswell Society (theboswellsociety.wordpress.com).
The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson (visionofbritain.org.uk/travellers/Boswell): the full text is available here.
Wilkie Collins
Wilkie Collins Society (wilkiecollinssociety.org): this was founded in 1980.
Ithell Colquhoun
Ithell Colquhoun (ithellcolquhoun.co.uk): an all-encompassing site managed by Richard Shillitoe.
Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens Museum (dickensmuseum.com): visit to soak up the atmosphere, or to consult the superb archive.
Dickens Fellowship (dickensfellowship.org): a worldwide fellowship of Dickens fans, founded in 1902.
Dickens Society (dickenssociety.org): dedicated to spreading the word of the great man.
Celia Fiennes
Through England on a Side Saddle in the Time of William and Mary (visionofbritain.org.uk/travellers/Fiennes): Celia’s journeys online.
Broughton Castle (broughtoncastle.com): home, once upon a time, to Celia’s scheming grandfather.
Samuel Johnson
A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland (visionofbritain.org.uk/travellers/Johnson): the full text is available here.
Johnson Society (johnsonnew.wordpress.com): founded in 1910.
Johnson Society of London (johnsonsocietyoflondon.org): founded in 1928.
Dr Johnson’s House (drjohnsonshouse.org): visit Dr Johnson’s London home, much tidier than it once was.
J. B. Priestley
J. B. Priestley Society (jbpriestley.co.uk): founded in 1997.
University of Bradford Library J. B. Priestley Archive (https://bradford.ac.uk/library/special-collections/collections/j-b-priestley-archive): Jack opened this library in 1975, and here is its collection devoted to the great man.
Martin Ross & Edith Somerville
Somerville and Ross Manuscript Collection (https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/data/gb752-srmc): a vast selection of diaries, letters and memorabilia held at Queen’s University, Belfast.
Drishane House (drishane.com): visit the Somerville home in south-west Ireland. Admire Edith’s art and taste in wallpaper. Stay in a cottage. Loiter at the graves of Somerville and Ross.
Gerald of Wales
The Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales (visionofbritain.org.uk/travellers/Cambrensis_Tour): the full text is available here.
The Description of Wales (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1092): the full text is available here.