Literary Map of England

Manuscript literary map of England likely created in the early 20th century.

This simple hand-drawn map offers a juvenile’s assessment of the various literary luminaries found across England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland (though only one nation is referenced in the title). The last names of over two dozen different authors can be found adjacent to the cities and towns of their birth. These range from metropolises like Dublin, Edinburgh, and London to smaller towns and regions like Ecclefechan, Ayrshire, and Hereford.

The vast majority of the entries are male English writers from the 17th-19th centuries, with Yeats as apparently the most recent, helping to date the map to the first decades of the 20th century. Other important outliers include the female author Christina Rossetti, Chaucer, and the Immortal Bard, William Shakespeare. Notably absent are Charles Dickens (from Portsmouth) and Jane Austen (Steventon). Signed Gladys Abbott in neat script on the verso.