Writers know the importance of settings. They create mood, amplify themes, and develop characters. Sometimes settings even become characters. More importantly, the right location can spark inspiration that gets a writer going in the first place.
Although any location has the potential to launch literary endeavors and feature prominently in them, a few cities around the world have developed especially storied histories in relation to the literary arts. The eight cities in this list have a particularly rich relationship with the written word, making them prime destinations for bibliophiles and literary scholars to explore.
1. London
From Sherlock Holmes’s capers to William Shakespeare’s creations, London boasts an enviable literary pedigree. A significant swath of the English language’s greatest writers wrote in or about London, including Charles Dickens, George Orwell, Graham Greene, Virginia Woolf, William Blake, William Wordsworth, Anthony Trollope, and Agatha Christie, to name a few.
With its rich history, London is a microcosm of the world, a prism through which great writers have examined the human condition in all its complexity. The literary traveler will find much to do in London Town. Visit the reconstruction of the Globe Theatre where Shakespeare’s plays were originally performed and examine the poet’s First Folio and other major works at the British Library. You can attend a London Walk featuring a significant literary figure or track Holmes’s adventures with a specially designed itinerary from VisitLondon.com.
2. Edinburgh, Scotland
Edinburgh was designated the first City of Literature by UNESCO. Like London, misty Edinburgh has inspired piles of books (more than 500, in fact) by various beloved authors. Giants of English letters such as the poet Robert Burns and the novelists Robert Louis Stevenson and Sir Walter Scott had connections to this city, and it honors them with special exhibits in its Writers’ Museum, housed in a castle-like 17th-century mansion. The dreamy, romantic ambiance of the city sets the tone for its annual Edinburgh International Book Festival, the largest book festival of its kind in the world.
3. New Bedford, Mass.
On the other side of the Atlantic, New Bedford, Massachusetts, holds a special place in American letters. Every year, the Moby-Dick Marathon commemorates Herman Melville’s 1841 departure on the Acushnet, the inauguration of the journey that inspired his monumental novel about a man obsessed with a whale. Hosted by the New Bedford Whaling Museum, the Moby-Dick Marathon consists of a 25-hour-long reading of Melville’s masterpiece. For a time, New Bedford was the whaling capital of the world (boasting 329 whaling ships) and one of the country’s richest communities. Melville’s novel helped restore the town’s faded glory.
4. Concord, Mass.
Not far from New Bedford, bibliophiles will find two more important sites in American literary history. Concord gave birth to the Transcendentalist movement through the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. These figures emphasized the importance of nature, intuition, individualism, and independence. Texts such as Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” and Thoreau’s “Walden” have embedded themselves as cornerstones in the American literary and philosophical tradition.
Today, travelers can visit the Old Manse where Nathaniel Hawthorne lived and where he met with Emerson and Thoreau, or they can take a trek to the eponymous Walden Pond of Thoreau’s classic. For longer stays, visitors can book a room at the Hawthorne Inn near Orchard House, where Louisa May Alcott wrote and set her novel “Little Women.” The house remains almost exactly as it was in Alcott’s time, right down to most of the furnishings. It provides a rare window into Alcott’s world and that of her heroines.
5. Paris
In the City of Lights, travelers can sip coffee at the same cafe Ernest Hemingway frequented, Les Deux Magots. Or, they can honor the grave of the eccentric Irish writer Oscar Wilde in the Père Lachaise Cemetery. Wilde was another expatriate author who found sanctuary amid Parisian boulevards and bakeries. Of course, special attention can be given to the famous French writers such as Victor Hugo and Honoré de Balzac at their respective museums. After chasing the literary ghosts haunting the streets, visitors can rest at the hotel Le Pavillon des Lettres in one of its 26 rooms, each one dedicated to a letter of the alphabet and a famous writer.
6. St. Petersburg, Russia
Russian literature enthusiasts can walk in the bloody footprints of Rodion Raskolnikov in the streets of St. Petersburg or visit the home of the man who created him: Fyodor Dostoevsky. “Crime and Punishment” is far from the only literary masterpiece of the city. St. Petersburg is also featured in the work of Alexander Pushkin, one of the greatest Russian poets, and the short story writer Nikolay Gogol. These authors’ works weave in and out of the streets of St. Petersburg, interpreting and reinterpreting the meaning of the place.
As one writer put it: “In its comparatively brief history, St. Petersburg has produced more literary masterpieces than probably any other city in the world. Moreover, the city itself has been far more than just an inspiration or setting for literature, becoming a central theme—a character, even—in some of the greatest works in Russian literature.”
7. Portland, Ore.
Portland boasts the largest new-and-used bookstore in the world, and for that reason alone deserves a place on this list. Powell’s City of Books engulfs an entire city block, with more than 1 million volumes stacked inside. Portland’s obsession with books doesn’t end there: Heathman Hotel offers a “Books by Your Bedside” package that includes complimentary books and a tour of the hotel’s 4,000-book library.
The city further celebrates the literary arts through the Portland Arts and Lectures series and the Portland Book Festival (formerly called “Wordstock”). Historically, Portland played a central role in the development of American letters through the establishment of the Portland Review in 1956, which has published many important American writers.
8. Istanbul
The wandering Hemingway made an appearance in Istanbul, too, and modern-day travelers shadowing him can stay at a hotel where the writer used to lodge. Alternatively, mystery enthusiasts can spend a night in the room where Christie wrote “Murder on the Orient Express.” The gilded streets of this opulent Middle Eastern city also inspired the works of French novelist and naval officer Pierre Loti, and the city honors him with a cafe that bears his name and offers a view of the Golden Horn. Istanbul also houses the Museum of Innocence, which is based on the novel of the same name by Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk.
Like the other cities on this list, Istanbul offers visitors a chance to soak in the glorious history of literary achievements.
