Reading List for Kent

Reading List for Kent

The Algebra of Ice by Lloyd Rose based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. An Ancient Evil : The Knight's Tale of Mystery and Murder as he goes on pilgrimage from London to Canterbury by P C Doherty A Clergyman's Daughter 1935 experimental novel by George Orwell The Crooked Hinge a mystery novel 1938 by detective novelist John Dickson Carr. The Darling Buds of May set in an idyllic rural 1950s Kent, by H. E. Bates. originally adapted to the screen in 1959 as The Mating Game / produced by Yorkshire Television for the UK ITV network 1991 launched the acting career of Catherine Zeta-Jones Doctor Syn: A Tale of the Romney Marsh - the first in the series of Doctor Syn novels by Russell Thorndike (brother of Dame Sybil Thorndike) Christopher Syn, the kindly vicar seems pleasant enough but has a pirate past and he is also the mysterious "Scarecrow of Romney Marsh ", masked leader of the local smugglers. 1915 The History of Mr Polly 1910 comic novel by H. G. Wells. The House at Pluck's Gutter by Manning Coles, pub. 1963 Kathryn Swinbrook novels, Fifteenth-Century Physician and Sleuth by C.L. Grace Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul by H. G. Wells, pub. 1905 Kipps was adapted into the stage musical Half a Sixpence Last Orders 1996 Booker Prize-winning novel by Graham Swift, it was adapted for the film Last Orders Malice Domestic by Millie Hardwick (Doran Fairweather-amateur detective series) Murder in the Cathedral by T S Eliot The Mystery of Edwin Drood (partly set in Rochester) / David Copperfield (partly set in Canterbury) by Charles Dickens

Dawn Blee +44(0) 77 905 97020 South East Tour Guides, Foxwold, Gracious Lane, Sevenoaks, Kent, England TN13 1TJ

The Nest of the Sparrowhawk (a Romance of the XVIIth Century) by Baroness Orczy, author of The Scarlet Pimpernel, 1909 Of Human Bondage (1915) by W. Somerset Maugham - strongly autobiographical The Orchard on Fire by Shena Mackay – contemporary mystery Riddley Walker sci-fi novel by Russell Hoban inspired by the medieval wall painting of the legend of St Eustace at Canterbury Cathedral. Spider's Web a novelization by Charles Osborne of the 1954 play of the same name by crime fiction writer Agatha Christie Spring Fever (1948 novel) novel by P.G. Wodehouse, pub. 1948 Strangers in Focus by Paul Crampton - Set in contemporary Canterbury, this compelling novel is both a detective and a love story. The Two Pound Tram by Wiliam Newton - main story begins in 1937 The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas – contemporary intruigue The Night She Died by Dorothy Simpson –detective mystery Undercurrents by Frances Fyfield - detective mystery A Hanging Matter by David Donachie - detective mystery Authors in Kent Most noted for his The Canterbury Tales, in his day Chaucer was more famous for his services to the king. At various times he was a yeoman of the king’s chamber, comptroller of the Petty Customs, went on several diplomatic missions abroad and was eventually created a Knight of the Shire for Kent. Christopher Marlowe, poet and playwright, also worked for the government, although in the rather more shady capacity of a spy. Born in Canterbury he went to the King’s School and from there to Cambridge on a scholarship. Apart from his six plays and a few poems, remarkably little is known of his life. Dr Faustus, The Jew of Malta Noel Coward purchased the house ‘White Cliffs’ in St Margaret’s Bay, Dover. Works written there include Blithe Spirit plus adaptations of his plays This Happy Breed and Still Life into filmscripts; the latter became Brief Encounter. Coward eventually sold ‘White Cliffs’ to his friend Ian Fleming for a weekend cottage, and numerous references to Kent appear in the James Bond books. For example, Fleming was extremely fond of playing golf at the Royal St George course at Sandwich and used the


location as the Royal St Mark golf course in his novel Goldfinger. One of Fleming’s favourite ‘locals’ was The Duck at Pett Bottom and in You Only Live Twice the obituary for James Bond written by M says that the young James went to live with an aunt ‘at the quaintly-named hamlet of Pett Bottom…in a small cottage hard by the attractive Duck Inn.’ 007 is said to have been inspired by the London to Dover bus. William Lygon, 7th Earl Beauchamp KG, KCMG, PC (1872 –1938) Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports & living at Walmer castle , Lord Beauchamp is generally supposed to have been the model for Lord Marchmain in Evelyn Waugh's novel, Brideshead Revisited. He had numerous affairs at Walmer Castle, with his partners ranging from servants to socialites. Sir Winston Churchill, another inhabitant of Walmer Castle is the only British prime minister to have received the Nobel Prize in Literature, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples. Deal, near Walmer is the setting for Ian Fleming's 1955 James Bond book Moonraker. Villain Hugo Drax has built his Moonraker rocket just outside Deal, where Bond has to go and investigate a murdered undercover operative. Deal also features briefly in The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
