When Fiction Reading Meets Nonfiction Travel

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At the Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford, Connecticut. (2013 photo by me.)

In the Northern Hemisphere, today is the first day of summer – the season when many people travel. And that traveling can be literature-related in certain ways. I’ll discuss some of my experiences, and then ask about yours.

In my post on another topic last week, I mentioned the Pantheon in Paris and Westminster Abbey in London, both of which contain the tombs of famous authors and/or “memorials” honoring them. These writers include, among others, Chaucer and Charles Dickens in Westminster and Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, Voltaire, and Emile Zola in the Pantheon. Sobering, unforgettable visits for fiction lovers.

Speaking of Zola and Dumas, I was in the south of France in 2007 accompanying my French professor wife Laurel to a Zola conference she was speaking at in Aix-en-Provence. Another speaker was Zola’s great-granddaughter, Martine Le Blond-Zola.

During that trip, Laurel and I also visited Marseille – from where we took a boat to the Chateau d’If island prison immortalized in Dumas’ novel The Count of Monte Cristo. Dumas used a jail cell there as the model for the one in which his Edmond Dantes character would be wrongly incarcerated for years.

On an earlier European trip, I visited the London house where Dickens lived from 1837 to 1839 – during which time he finished The Pickwick Papers and wrote Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby.

Also while in London back then, I went to the Madame Tussauds wax museum – where the figures I most remember were of the three Bronte sisters (Charlotte, Emily, and Anne) sitting together.

Back in the USA, I’ve visited literature-related sites such as the Herman Melville “Arrowhead” house and museum in Pittsfield, Massachusetts (where the author lived from 1850 to 1863 and wrote works such as Moby-Dick) and the Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford, Connecticut (where the author lived from 1874 to 1891 and penned novels such as Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn).

In addition, I toured the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library in Indianapolis while attending a conference in that city.

And I’ve traveled to other conferences and gatherings in which speakers included novelists Tom Clancy, Lisa Scottoline, John Updike, Tom Wolfe, and others. (I didn’t go to see those writers per se; they happened to be among the speakers.)

Getting a literary experience while visiting somewhere can be more indirect. For instance, when I spent several days in St. Petersburg many years ago I didn’t see anything specific about Fyodor Dostoevsky but thought about Crime and Punishment’s setting as I walked around the Russian city. And I once stayed in a Terre Haute, Indiana, hotel where there was a lobby display about famous local Theodore Dreiser of Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy novels renown.

I have the vague recollection that I wrote about this topic years ago, but couldn’t locate that possible post in an online search. I’ll add that frequent commenter here Michele indirectly gave me the idea for today’s post when she mentioned a recent New York Times article about literary travel; that story (below) took a different approach than I did.

Any personal literature-related travel experiences you’d like to share?

Misty the cat says: “So THIS is where Anne Tyler wrote her 1995 novel ‘Ladder of Years’!”

My comedic 2024 book — the part-factual/part-fictional/not-a-children’s-work Misty the Cat…Unleashed — is described and can be purchased on Amazon in paperback or on Kindle. It’s feline-narrated! (And Amazon reviews are welcome. 🙂 )

This 90-second promo video for the book features a talking cat: 🙂

I’m also the author of a 2017 literary-trivia book…

…and a 2012 memoir that focuses on cartooning and more, including many encounters with celebrities.

In addition to this weekly blog, I write the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column every Thursday for Montclair Local. The latest piece — which contains great library news and laments the long delay of a much-needed forensic audit of my town’s deficit-ridden school district — is here.

40 thoughts on “When Fiction Reading Meets Nonfiction Travel”

  2. Great post Dave.. Well, here in Dundee any literary figures and their associates are reduced to plaques. And statues. Even though Robbie Burns had nowt to do with the town, we have one of the four identical ones, one of the others being in New York. Our very own bard William McGonagall who was banned from the unveiling of it at the time but turned up and caused a stooshie anyway, after more recent council stooshies has a square named after him and a plaque. We also have plaques where Sarah Wiedemanm, Robert Browning’s mother was born and where Mary Shelley stayed–crediting the area with her flights of fancy…. I’ve been to the Keats Shelley house in Rome, Kafka’s house in Prague, the Walter Scott monument in Edinburgh.

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  3. Good subject, Dave. I’ve never undertaken literature-related tourism, but I’ve travelled many times to Lesvos, where Aristotle lived and worked for a couple of years, and where the poetess Sappho was born and live. I’ve been to Skiathos and seen the house of writer Alexandros Papadiamantis. Closer to home I’ve travelled around Thomas Hardy’s ‘Wessex'(aka Dorset) and seen the grave of Anne Bronte in Scarborough. Even closer to home, the White Hart Inn in Tetford, Lincolnshire, close to where I live, was the local of Alfred, Lord Tennyson; they still have his regular seat there. Dr Johnson of dictionary fame also visited there once, apparently. I think that’ll do, but if I think of any more I’ll be back. Have a good week. 🙂

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    • Thank you, Laura! Literature-related tourism sometimes happens, at least a bit, without planning. 🙂 Exciting that you’ve been to Lesvos many times! And you’ve done some great famous-writer-related visits in the UK!

      Have a good week, too!

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  4. Great post, Dave. Reading it makes me think I do a fair amount of literary travel, because I find myself in places where books were set–like the time I was on a Boston Harbor cruise and the tour guide said, “…and there is Shutter Island.” “Like the book?” I exclaimed. Or visiting caves in southern France with paintings and saying, “like the Clan and the Cave Bear.” Or on a walking tour in Lyon and approaching a convent (on top of a hill) which the guide pointed to and explained that nuns here protected Jewish children during WWII. Another woman and I said simultaneously “Like in Nightingale” by Kristin Hannah. I have made many other literary connections in my travels, including a trip to Ireland in college connected with an Irish Lit course.

    But, intentionally, I went to Amsterdam and Westerbork in the Netherlands because of Etty Hillesum’s books An Interrupted Life and Letters from Westerbork. I wanted to be in the places where Etty had been. In Amsterdam, there is only a plaque on the building where she lived and I could not go inside. But Westerbork was an amazing place to visit. There are probably others (especially in Ireland and England) but this was the most memorable.

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    • Thank you, Madeline! Great that you’ve done a good amount of literary travel, and I enjoyed seeing your various examples of that! The Netherlands is a great country to visit, and literary connections make it even better. Kristin Hannah is one of my favorite living authors, and I loved Jean M. Auel’s “The Clan of the Cave Bear” and its five sequels. 🙂

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  5. You are well traveled,Dave.

    A few years back I had taken a bicycle trip in VT/NH. I was told off the long, winding road lived JD Salinger.

    I have Selected Poems of Walt Whitman on my book shelf. I plan to read Crossing Brooklyn Ferry as a precursor to visiting his birthplace on LI as an homage, not as far to travel.

    https://www.waltwhitman.org/

    Local library has a pass if i recollect.

    Thank you for mention in blog. 🙂

    Michele

    E & P way back

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    • Thank you, Michele! And you’re very welcome for the blog mention; thanks for sparking the idea!

      I was well-traveled “back in the day”; not quite as much in recent years. 🙂

      You had an interesting proximity to where the reclusive J.D. Salinger lived! A nice area of the country to take a bike trip.

      Great plan re Walt Whitman!

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  6. I love all of the connections you’ve made between great works and the evocative places associated with them, Dave! Truly amazing. ❤️❤️❤️
    You’ve got my wheels turning trying to remember a childhood experience in a historical museum in Ohio that was quite creepy…an old homestead belonging (I thought) to an author from the 1800s but I couldn’t tell you who! Such a vague flash of recognition popping as I read your post. Hmmm! 🤔 🤔🤔

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      • I remembered! It was poet Paul Laurence Dunbar’s childhood home in Dayton! We lived nearby and my dad was fascinated by Dunbar’s friendship with the Wright brothers. Hmmm! I’ll need to add this to my task list…I remember loving Dunbar’s poetry. ❤️

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        • Wow — had no idea that Paul Laurence Dunbar and the Wright brothers were friends! Great to know!

          (I knew Ohio-born “Terry and the Pirates”/”Steve Canyon” comic creator Milton Caniff when I covered cartooning for a magazine; he was good friends with Orville Wright.)

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  7. What a wonderful collection of literary journeys, Dave. One of the places that spoke most deeply to me was Oxford. Don, my son and I had lunch at the Eagle and Child, where the Inklings gathered, and then made our way to Tolkien’s tree. I understand Tolkien would often walk there to think, and standing beneath it I found myself reflecting on how ideas take root and grow.

    I am especially grateful we made that visit when we did, because the original tree is no longer there. From what I have read, seedlings or cuttings have been used to continue its legacy. There is something beautifully Tolkien-esque about that. A tree passes, yet its story continues through new growth.

    I believe that one reason literary travel resonates so strongly is that we are not simply visiting places. We are stepping into stories. Sometimes those stories belong to famous writers, and sometimes they remind us that our own lives are part of a larger narrative stretching across generations.

    The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

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    • Thank you, Rebecca! Wow — what a treasured memory of being in Oxford and experiencing those Tolkien connections. A shame that tree is now gone, but you saw it in time! I enjoyed your comment’s eloquent reflections.

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  8. Lovely post! I spent a few summer weeks in the old french village Grignan, where the major literary idol was Mme de Sevigné. There are several books with her reprinted letters, that she wrote to the french aristocracy during the 1600’s. I can recommend “Madame de Sevigné Lettres” that are mainly between her and her much loved daughter, that she wrote while staying in the Grignan castle.

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    • Thank you, Thérèse! That sounds like an amazing few weeks in that old French village! And to read letters from the 1600s is a real historical treat. Your comment had me looking at Wikipedia for more information on Madame de Sévigné. 🙂

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  9. I spent some time in the Lexington/Concord area in Massachusetts, and saw some famous author homes or places where they lived for a while.

    The ‘Old Manse’, was built by Ralph Waldo Emerson’s grandparents, and is where Emerson wrote his first book, Nature. Later on, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote the story that gave the house its name, Mosses from an Old Manse. Both authors wrote in the same room.

    Nathaniel Hawthorne also named ‘The Wayside.’ He lived there in 1850-60s but Louisa May Alcott lived there as a teenager in the 1840s. Farther down the same road, ‘Orchard House’ is where she would later write Little Women.

    I’ve been to the Mark Twain house. My daughter even gave me a gift of being able to write for three hours in the library of that house. It’s not where Twain wrote, but still…

    Next to Twain’s house (on the same property) is the Harriet Beecher Stowe’s house.

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    • Thank you, Dan! Great, informative comment! New England has a LOT of famous 19th-century writers. (And more recent ones such as Stephen King.) Love those connections you cited. Hawthorne and Herman Melville were apparently friends as well.

      Yes, if I’m remembering right, Twain wrote in that room with the pool table rather than in the library. But wonderful that you were gifted those three hours in that house’s library! And I remember seeing Harriet Beecher Stowe’s home next door.

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  10. How interesting!

    A long time ago, I had the pleasure of staying in a splendid villa on the Brenta River, which has been transformed into a charming boutique hotel. It’s where Lord Byron spent his summers in 1817, seeking inspiration away from the hustle and bustle of Venice.

    I think exploring the places where literary giants lived or found inspiration adds a deep and personal layer to the travel experience! 🏛️

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  11. Your trip to Marseille and the Chateau d’If island prison intrigues me! As a huge fan of the book, it must’ve been so cool (and maybe a little disturbing?) to see inside. Jails freak me out, as I can’t help but feel empathy for the people imprisoned there, but it must have been quite an experience!

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    • Thank you, Ada! Seeing the Chateau d’If was definitely cool and disturbing. The not-that-short, choppy boat ride there on a rainy day, the grim fortress-like buildings, the cells. One definitely feels empathy for people in prison, whether guilty (if the crime wasn’t too bad) or innocent (as was Edmond Dantes in Dumas’ superb novel). I have photos of the Chateau d’If visit stashed somewhere (prints from camera shots before I had a smartphone).

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  12. I am very happy reading your literature-related travel to England, France and America. You’re a truly travelled author, with inspiring accounts. In 2022, I made my first travel to Sierra Leone, a neighboring country of my home country, Guinea. For the first time in my life, I crossed the frontiers of Guinea. I went and enrolled in a PhD program at a rural private Christian university. I saw different people, different animals and different landscapes along the travel. It was, of course, an academic travel, not purely a literature travel. But it was memorable. Thank you very much for your work reminding me of my first academic travel ever. My first travel-out ever. Academically yours, Ahmadou.

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    • Thank you, Ahmadou!

      Great that you went to neighboring Sierra Leone in 2022! Wonderful to see different people, animals, cultures, and landscapes, as you note. And being in a different place to get an academic degree definitely adds a lot to the experience.

      I used to travel abroad a lot from the United States; not as much during the 2020s, except for Guatemala this past January.

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  13. Several years ago, my mother and I visited Louisa May Alcott’s house in Concord, MA. She’d taken me there when I was a child, and I thought it would be fun to go back. My husband and I visited Ernest Hemingway’s house in Key West, including his writing studio with stand-up desk.

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