Peterborough in print
Hope you'll indulge me here, a bit of summer (where's that sun gone?!) fun but with a serious side.
I've been stocking up on some summer reading and recently finished Dissolution by CJ Sansom (which i would totally recommend by the way, gripping murderous thriller set in the 15th century) - anyway I was really struck because Peterborough is mentioned early on and it got me thinking about a visit last year to the Musee des artes du Cognac - in Cognac, France - where there was a little library of books all with cognac referenced somewhere in the plot. It really made me think how all-pervading a product cognac is, it pops up all over the place from James Bond to Wuthering Heights, creating a mythology about the drink.
So in the same sense, have you read any books where Peterborough is mentioned?
Where else is Peterborough featured in the literary world? How is the identity of a place shaped by its literary heritage? How is Peterborough's culture informed by its past? Which books would you recommend?
I've started the ball rolling, who's next?
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Comment by Georgina Chatfield on January 16, 2012 at 14:51
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Thanks for that Tony. I love the idea of Peterborough 'pin-pricking the horizon' - conjures up a lovely vision, especially this time of year with the cold, bright mornings and steamy skies.
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Comment by Tony Ramsay on January 11, 2012 at 14:19 -
My father lifted me up to look over the wall of the brickyard kiln where he worked and pointed to the distant lights of Peterborough pin-pricking the horizon. Seeing them across the low, flat fields already darkened by the sky, they seemed to belong to another country. And when my father said in his flat, tired voice "One day you might go there," he made it sound like the end of a lifetime's adventure which only a few achieved.
Edward Storey - Fen Boy First 1992
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Comment by Tony Ramsay on January 11, 2012 at 14:00
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Peterborough was home to scriptwriter, novelist, tv dramatist, radio dramatist John Hynam who died in the 1970s. The library holds his literary archive.
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Comment by Kate Hall on November 1, 2011 at 12:30 -
JB Priestley passes spends a night in Peterborough as part of "English Journey"
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Comment by Stuart Orme on November 1, 2011 at 12:09
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There are loads of Peterborough literary connections...
Large sections of the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, the key source for England's early medieval history, were written by monks at Peterborough Abbey.
John Fletcher, Elizabethan playwright and poet (co-wrote Henry VIII with Shakespeare) was a King's School boy - his father was Dean of Peterborough Cathedral. Legend has it that Fletcher suggested our own 'Old Scarlet' the gravedigger as a model for the gravedigger in Hamlet.
To disagree with a post above, Dickens didn't slag off Peterborough - he did write an article moaning about the standard of railway food at Peterborough North station (no change there then!) He actually seems to have liked Peterborough. Legend is that he based the workhouse and beadle in Oliver Twist on the Peterborough ones. He did readings here on a number of occasions (many experts believe his first one was here) and on one occasion in 1859 said it was the best one he'd ever done!
Canon EJ Swain, Canon at Stanground and resident in the Cathedral precincts was a famous writer of short ghost stories.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle based the legend of the 'Hound of the Baskervilles' on the East Anglian Black Dog legend of Black Shuck, the earliest version of which comes from Peterborough Abbey and the chronicle of Hugh Candidus.
The crime writer Ellis Peters, in her famed 'Cadfael' novels about a medieval monk detective refers to a treasure being found in a shop on Priestgate in Peterborough in 'The Potters Field'.
Ken Follett wrote his seminal novel 'The Pillars of the Earth' about the building of a medieval cathedral after being inspired by a visit to Peterborough Cathedral. Some of the story mirrors real events that took place in our city.
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What a fab blog you've got going on there. And whilst we are amassing various Peterborough facts as we are working there the Cathedral and Royal Albert Hall one has passed us by so there you go. And spoonflower looks brilliant too. Thanks for your contributions here.
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Comment by Hannah Robinson on October 7, 2011 at 12:59
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Yes, please do get that link in - sounds right up this blog's street!
I didn't know those two popular books you mention were set in Peterborough. Shall have to check them out.
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Comment by Hannah Robinson on October 7, 2011 at 12:19
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A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon is set in Peterborough, as is A History Of Tractors In Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka. I haven't read the latter but I have read other works by her, she is some sort of expert on immigration I believe, I think she lectures in Sheffield. I did blog about Peterborough being mentioned in literature last month (not sure if I'm allowed to put links here though)
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Comment by Susannah Willcox on September 8, 2011 at 11:47 -
Thanks Louise! Will have to keep an eye out for him...
Also, Keely Mills kindly offered the following comment on facebook:
John Betjeman once described the old corn exchange as the worst eyesore in Britain and Charles Dickens also slated us in his diaries. I would look towards John Clare.
© 2012 Created by Benedict Dellot.
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