Literary Torquay

 Dame Agatha Christie had a long association with Torquay.  Born in the town, she spent her honeymoon at The Grand Hotel and lived in a number of homes, most notably Greenway.  It was whilst working in a dispensary that she acquired much of her knowledge of poisons that inspired the themes of several of her novels.  What you may not know is that Torquay has played host to some controversial figures in the literary world.  It was a favourite destination of Oscar Wilde and Henry James, who were winter visitors, whilst Lord Alfred Tennyson and Rupert Brooke loved the place.  Tennyson described it as "the loveliest sea village in England". 

It is said that Wilde wrote "A Woman of No Importance" when staying in Torquay.  He also penned a letter to Lord Tennyson and subsequently was grilled about its impropriety at the first of his 3 trials in 1890.  So it seems Victorian "frolics" simmered under Torquay's genteel facade.

A bit of a surprise might be the fact that Benjamin Disraeli used to visit Torquay in the 1850's, returning many times to stay at the former Royal Hotel.  He was an author before he became Prime Minister.  A resident at Rock House, Rock Lane was Rudyard Kipling whilst Elizabeth Barrett Browning lived in Beacon Terrace.  Sadly her love of Torquay diminished when one of her brothers tragically drowned in Babbacombe Bay.

 Wild and rugged Dartmoor has served the world of literature well, starring in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "Hound of the Baskervilles".  Apparently its origination is shrouded in as much fog as the novel.  Whilst Doyle acknowledged that it was his friend Bertram Fletcher Robinson who first told him of the legend of the Dartmoor hound, a one time carriage driver for the family claimed that Bertram has played a much bigger part in its authorship than had been credited.

Let's not exclude the setting of Exmoor.  R.D.Blackmore has been described as the "last Victorian" and pioneer of the new, romantic movement in fiction that was continued by Robert Louis Stevenson and others.  Blackmore is said to have done for Devon what Hardy did for Wessex.  Sadly, Lorna Doone is the only one of his works not to have gone out of publication.