Happy World Book Day - The North Devon and Exmoor landscape has inspired many writers and poets.

The  North Devon and Exmoor landscape has inspired many writers and poets.

Westward Ho! is synonymous with two famous authors, It was named after the novel ‘Westward Ho!’ written by Charles Kingsley when he lived in #Bideford. He grew up around the bay in Clovelly. His children’s novel ‘The Water-Babies’, is said to be inspired by the fishing village where his father was once Rector.

Rudyard Kipling, author of ‘The Jungle Book’, attended the United Services College, the long white building. The first verse of his poem ‘If’ features on the promenade below Kipling Tors. His collection of stories, ‘Stalky & Co’, is based on his experiences at the College, which he attended from January 1878 to 1882.  He was a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Today's writers are still being inspired by our beautiful coast and countryside including North Devon's own Liz Shakespeare, the author of five books set in Devon. She was born and brought up in Devon and her writing has been influenced by the family stories she grew up with and the sense of being deeply rooted in the area. She draws her inspiration from the Devon countryside and from the strong historical identity of the area.

In the frame what was once the United Services College. Westward Ho! Photo credit Pat Adams (North Devon Focus)

In the frame Kipling Tors. Westward Ho! Photo credit Pat Adams (North Devon Focus)

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Photos taken #onthisday 4th March 2017 

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Other authors and poets of note

RD Blackmoor - Lorna Doone

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

RF Delderfield - A Horseman Riding By, To Serve Them All My Days

Percey Bysshe Shelley

William Wordsworth

Henry Williamson - Tarka the Otter

Liz Shakespeare - The Song of the Skylark; The Postman Poet and The Poems of Edward Capern; All Around The Year; The Turning of the Tide; Fever – A Story from a Devon Churchyard; The Memory be Green