Wirral Peninsula - Wirral in Literature

Wirral in Literature

• Sir Gawain spent Christmas on Wirral before his confrontation with the Green Knight.

The wilderness of Wirral:

few lived there

Who loved with a good heart

either God or man

• Olaf Stapledon, a writer, spent much of his life in West Kirby and Caldy, and many landscapes mentioned in his works can be identified.
• Jim Bennett (poet), although born in Liverpool has lived for many years on the Wirral and in Heswall, many landmarks, places and shops are used in his writing. His collection of poems "Larkhill" was nominated for the Ted Hughes Poetry Award.
• Wirral is mentioned in Helen Forrester's (1974) Twopence to Cross The Mersey as a place unreachable and comparably rich from the perspective of a poor girl struggling to live with her family in Liverpool during the Great Depression, despite having an aunt in West Kirby and the Mersey ferry costing just tuppence.
• Maria V. Snyder named the maximum security prison in her book Spy Glass after the Wirral, after she was awarded the "Wirral paperback of the year" by school pupils for her earlier book Poison Study. She hopes that residents are not offended.