Cornish Literary Tourism

As the westernmost county of England, Cornwall features landscapes full of legends and prehistoric antiquities. The peripherality and distance, even today, from metropolitan England are added to notions of Celticity and create a sense of ‘Otherness’ for the tourist gaze (Busby, 2012). Former activities such as smuggling and mining have added to the rich palette for writers to draw upon. The following statement has been attributed to the Cornish poet Charles Causley – “Nobody but a plastic rhinoceros could fail to be conscious of the past in Cornwall”. Travellers from King Henry VIII’s librarian John Leland onwards have described features of the county; for example, the first writer to use the term picturesque, William Gilpin, said in 1775 that “from Launceston we travelled as far into Cornwall as Bodmin, through a coarse naked country…” (Gray, 2000: 54) – a wild landscape and one which features Jamaica Inn, both features being emphasised in Daphne du Maurier’s novel and resulting films.

These elements of landscape and myth have influenced the plots of many novels and, in turn, drawn visitors for at least two centuries. This dictionary entry outlines the key authors and their works and some evidence for visitors to whom the novels appealed. There are examples of both ‘literary’ works and those nearer to being categorised as pulp fiction, as well as non-fiction – all forms induce literary tourism. As examples of literary works, D.M. Thomas published Birthstone in 1980, which, as his website states, drew on the county for inspiration, and, in 2000, he “re-examined the links of the Brontes with Cornwall” in Charlotte: The Final Journey of Jane Eyre (Kent, 2002: 214).

Whilst most of Thomas Hardy’s novels feature a Dorset setting, he met his first wife in Cornwall and published A Pair Of Blue Eyes in 1873, using autobiographical elements from his time in the county; four of his poems feature the county, again based on his time in north Cornwall. Later in the nineteenth century, Arthur Quiller-Couch, more frequently known as ‘Q’, published a number of works which probably influenced perceptions of the county and visitor numbers; the website www.arthurquillercouch.com provides a range of resources. D.H. Lawrence’s 1923 novel Kangaroo is said to be strongly autobiographical, drawing on his experience in the West Penwith area; this is an example of where it is the highly-motivated literary pilgrim who is likely to seek out the locations. Four years later, Virginia Woolf published To The Lighthouse, set on a Scottish island yet drawing on her time in Cornwall, particularly St Ives: “A thinly disguised version of St Ives, Talland House and her parents’ Cornish activities appear” in the novel (Tresize, 2000: 211). Kenneth Grahame, author of The Wind In The Willows, ostensibly set his children’s story on the river Thames, although the river Fowey experienced on his honeymoon was the real inspiration.

In the twentieth century, two authors are pre-eminent in creating literary tourism. Beginning with The Loving Spirit, published in 1931, Daphne du Maurier crafted several novels with Cornish settings, the last being Rule Britannia in 1972. A number of these, such as Jamaica Inn and Rebecca, were adapted for cinema and television on multiple occasions. “Freedom, delight, temptation and danger are to be found in du Maurier’s Cornwall” (Busby & Hambly, 2000: 200).

The publication of Winston Graham’s Ross Poldark in 1945 was the first of what was to eventually be twelve volumes in the saga; the last was published in 2002. The novels certainly influenced tourism to Cornwall, but it was adaptation for television that dramatically changed visitor numbers; fifteen million viewers saw the first series in 1975 (Busby & Laviolette, 2006) and the 2015 series reinforced the effect. Almost certainly, there has been film-induced literary tourism although this is far from easy to measure (Busby, 2022). An internet-based forum was used to elicit views on Poldark; one respondent from the USA stated, “We travelled from Commerce, Michigan specifically to see Poldark Country. We were not disappointed” (Busby & Laviolette, 2006: 153).

To illustrate a different genre, the crime writer W.J. Burley published novels in his Wycliffe series between 1968 and 2000, but he was brought to a wider audience by the television series which ran from 1994 to 1998 and featured many parts of Cornwall. Rosamunde Pilcher’s novels have also been adapted for television, particularly for the German market and resulted in substantial tourism from that country to West Penwith (Busby & Hambly, 2000). Reflecting another literary genre, E.V. Thompson’s historical novels emphasised the Cornish past and were translated into at least fourteen languages, selling more than five million copies by the time of his death in 2012 (BBC News, 2012).

Poetry has also influenced tourism with key individuals such as John Betjeman, Charles Causley, and Jack Clemo to the fore. For example, television documentaries featuring John Betjeman illustrated the lure of the north Cornwall coast. Guidebooks, as another form of literature, are worth considering since research showed specific ones being identified by visitors (Busby & Laviolette, 2012). Murray’s 1851 guide was the first in a series in the United Kingdom and was ground-breaking at the time; they were rapidly followed by other publishers, with the first of the Little Guides appearing in 1903 and the ninth edition in 1950 (Busby & Laviolette, 2012). The “outpouring of guidebook literature on Cornwall did not in the main re-emphasise existing differences but created new differences and new myths often revolving around aspects of the landscape and a sense of ‘mystery’” (Deacon, 1993: 206). Quite clearly, Cornwall means different things to different visitors, and a phenomenological perspective is essential when examining the various elements (Baleiro, 2023a); for example, Jamaica Inn on Bodmin Moor, a well-known hospitality site, will be visited by those who have heard of Daphne du Maurier besides those in search of the location for her only Gothic novel – illustrating dark literary tourism (Baleiro, 2023b).

In the public sector, local government and the short-lived DACOM (Devon and Cornwall Overseas Marketing) have used the romanticisation of Cornwall in their marketing strategies; the latter published a thirty-page booklet illustrating literary trails (Busby & Hambly, 2000). In recent years, Visit Cornwall has continued to emphasise the links between literature and the landscape (www.visitcornwall.com/itineraries/a-literary-tour-of-west-cornwall). This illustrates the juxtaposition between economics and literature (Capecchi, 2023) which results in literary tourism. A range of literary genres have ensured that Cornwall in myth and landscape has been brought to a wide audience, catalysed still further by the small and large screen, resulting in substantial visitor numbers. Furthermore, it is not only fiction; for example, Raynor Winn’s Salt Path received acclaim on publication in 2018 and appears as a film in 2025 with well-known actors likely to act as imprimaturs for visits to Cornwall. Table 1 displays a selection of fictional and non-fictional literary works portraying Cornwall.

Table 1. A selection of authors and their works featuring Cornwall (Fiction and Non-Fiction)

How to cite this entry: Busby, G. (2025). Cornish literary tourism. In R. Baleiro, G. Capecchi & J. Arcos-Pumarola (Eds.), E-Dictionary of Literary Tourism. University for Foreigners of Perugia.