These quotes are a small selection from the many writers and poets who have been drawn to Cornwall. With the exception of Percy Shelley who may or may not have visited Cornwall at all, and Paul Theroux who travelled through the county only briefly, they all lived here for a time; for some, the place exerted a powerful influence  throughout their lives, and featured significantly in their works.

John Betjeman

Poet laureate John Betjeman’s love for the cliffs and beaches of northern Cornwall began with childhood summers spent with his family in the fishing village of Padstow. As the train approached the Cornish coast, the young Betjeman would almost burst with excitement. His early impressions were incurably romantic and caught up with memories of the warmth and security of his childhood. This was a different world to London, full of shipwrecks, haunted woods, ‘oil-lit chapels’ and ‘golden bays’ as described in his iconic poem, ‘Delectable Duchy‘ (1974). As an adult he returned most summers until he moved here permanently.

Daphne du Maurier

At nineteen Daphne du Maurier visited Cornwall with her mother and sisters, on a mission to find a holiday house. Sweeping around a bend they entered a ‘gateway to another world’ in the tiny, southern riverside village of Bodinnick. The ‘full expanse of Fowey harbour’ spread out before them, making their  ‘spirits soar’. Cornwall became the central and most beloved landscape of du Maurier’s life, and featured in many of her novels, including Rebecca and Jamaica Inn. To her, Cornwall represented freedom: ‘Freedom to write, to walk to wander, freedom to climb hills, to pull a boat, to be alone.’ I have followed Daphne’s trail all over Cornwall but we begin her story with her youth in London.

Charles Causley

Born in Launceston, on the Northern Tamar/Devon border, the poet Charles Causley lived there all his life, teaching at the local primary school in the shadow of a Norman castle. His ballads are often drawn from Cornish folklore, and he built aspects of Launceston into his poems, with its grey palette of limestone and slate. Much of his work is strikingly original and has lyrical echoes of Cornwall’s working culture. ‘Why should I starve in London…?’ he asked. ‘Starve emotionally, and imaginatively, as well as financially? I meet very few other poets who, secretively…haven’t wished that they’d stayed where – as we say in Cornwall – where they belong to be. And perhaps I belong to be in Launceston.’

Thomas Hardy

Cornwall held powerful, romantic associations for Thomas Hardy as it was where he met his wife Emma. He renamed it Lyonesse and built it into his imaginary Wessex landscape. As is shown in the story ‘Why go to Saint-Juliot?’ the north coast of Cornwall close to Boscastle featured richly in his early novel A Pair of Blue Eyes, and his  Poems of 1912-13 , a series of elegies about Emma written after her death that are extraordinarily moving.

D.H. Lawrence

For much of the First World War, D.H. Lawrence settled with his wife Frieda on the remote Penwith Coast near Zennor, not far from Land’s End. He was drawn to the wild coastland and the moors, with their strange scatter of huge granite stones and traces of pre-Christian civilisations. It was the place above all others in Britain where he felt a connection with the primeval past: ‘…this seems like a magic country with invisible walls and one is kept in by enchantment.’ His experiences here would find their way into Women in Love and Kangaroo and the landscape had an important bearing on his philosophy, as shall be seen.

Katherine Mansfield

This is not a landscape for everyone. Katherine Mansfield was enchanted when she first arrived, but grew to dislike it, commenting that it had ‘too many stones’. As I’ll show in a forthcoming story, her change of heart had more to do with her experiences here with D. H. Lawrence and his wife Frieda. Although she wrote about it extensively in letters and in her journal, Cornwall never appeared in her fiction.

Paul Theroux

Paul Theroux came to Cornwall on his trip around the British coastline in the early 1980s for the book that became Kingdom by the Sea. By the time he reached Cornwall he seemed tired and out of sorts. Although he compared the northern coastline near Padstow to that of his beloved Maine, he gave the distinct impression he preferred the latter.

Virginia Woolf

‘Why am I so incredibly and incurably romantic about Cornwall?’ asked Virginia Woolf. Probably because it was the setting for some of her earliest memories about blissful childhood summers spent at Talland House, her family’s holiday home. There it stood, this big white house in its shimmer of light, with its rambling garden and view of the curving bay of St Ives, a distant lighthouse visible across the ‘great plateful of blue water’. It provided, she said, ‘the best beginning to a life conceivable’ and figured prominently in her work. Three of her novels: To The Lighthouse, The Waves and Jacob’s Room are known as the St Ives trilogy for their autobiographical content drawn these childhood memories of Cornwall.  And all her life she was drawn back to the lights and sounds of this place, as we shall see. I have also followed Virginia Woolf, her sister Vanessa and the Bloomsbury Group from London’s Kew Gardens, Richmond, Hyde Park Gate and Bloomsbury, to Cassis in the south of France and Charleston House on the Sussex Downs. A story is coming soon.

Over coming months and years (I hope) I will pick up the threads of the lives writers and artists who lived here. And I will try my best to capture their unique interpretations and experiences of places that were significant to them.

Music:

La Moresca, Awel Vase

La Moresca is a German ensemble formed in 2009. They tour internationally, performing imaginative and unusual programs of Celtic, folk and early baroque music. They are particularly inspired by the music from Celtic nations. ‘Awel Vase’ was composed by Hilary Coleman in 1988 from the Cornish group Dalla. For details about La Moresca’s forthcoming performances, please see their Facebook page.

La Moresca’s music has been linked to the slide show with their kind permission.