History of Hertfordshire - Authors of Hertfordshire

Authors of Hertfordshire

Jane Austen (1775-1817) wrote about Hertfordshire. Pride and Prejudice is set in a fictionalised Hertfordshire. Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626), writer and Lord Chancellor, lived at Gorhambury near St Albans and is buried at St Michael's. J. M. Barrie (1860-1937) based his character Peter Pan on Peter Llewelyn Davies, his friend's son, after visiting their family in Berkhamsted. Dame Juliana Berners (1388-?) was the author of the Boke of St Albans, a guide to hunting, hawking and heraldry, which was printed by Abbey Press in 1486. John Bunyan (1628-1688) was linked to Hitchin, and although he was gaoled outside the county in Bedford, he was a member of the Baptist Church at Kensworth (at that time in Hertfordshire, though now in Bedfordshire). He preached extensively in Hertfordshire. George Chapman (c. 1559-1634), a poet and playwright remembered for his translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey, was born in Hitchin and lived there. Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400) was Clerk of the Works at Berkhamsted Castle in 1389.

Sir Henry Chauncy (1632-1719), known for his Historical Antiquities of Hertfordshire (pub. 1700), was made first Recorder of Hertford in 1680. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) was edicated at Christ's Hospital, Hitchin. William Cowper (1731-1800), poet, was born and lived in Berkhamsted. He was later institutionalised in an asylum in St Albans. Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was often in Hertfordshire (not least to visit his friend Edward Bulwer Lytton, who is mentioned below), and significant elements of his novels are set there. Sir Richard Fanshawe (1608-1666) was born at Ware Park and his memorial tablet is in Ware. E. M. Forster (1879-?) lived at Rook's Nest House between Stevenage and Weston. William Godwin (1756-1836), an anarchist philosopher, was a Chapel Minister in Ware; his feminist wife Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, gave him a daughter, Mary Shelley (1797-1851), who wrote Frankenstein. Graham Greene (1904-1991) was educated at Berkhamsted Grammar School, where his father was headmaster. Julian Grenfell (1888-1915), the First World War poet, lived in Panshanger. Lady Caroline Lamb (1785-1827) lived at Brocket Hall and wrote Glenarvon there after her unhappy love affair with Lord Byron. She is buried in Hatfield.

Nathaniel Lee (c. 1653-1692), poet and playwright, was born in Hatfield where his father was rector. Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873) lived at the family seat of Knebworth House where he often entertained Charles Dickens and Benjamin Disraeli, among others. John Scott, the Quaker poet and writer, moved to Great Amwell in 1740. He gave Amwell its name (after Emma's Well, which is nearby and now dry; the well has part of John Scott's poem "Emma" inscribed near it.) Nobel prizewinning playwright George Bernard Shaw lived in Hertfordshire until his death in 1950. Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) lived in Waltham Cross. Thomas Walsingham (?-1422), author of the Historia Anglicana and chronicler of the Peasants' Revolt, was a monk in St Albans Abbey in the early 15th century.