Writers' Houses reflects Britain's impressive literary and architectural heritage, offering a revealing insight into how leading British writers lived and wrote. Illustrated in colour, the book guides you through the very rooms that inspired writers to produce some of their greatest work. Drawing upon the writers' own words, the book examines in detail the personal relationship between each house and writer and discusses the influence these places have had upon the imagination and creativity of British novelists, poets and playwrights from the past five hundred years. Over fifty houses are explored including Agatha Christie's secluded West Country retreat, the ancient, timber-framed residence in Stratford-upon-Avon where Shakespeare spent his boyhood, Dylan Thomas' boat-house at Laugharne, the cottage where Robert Burns was born and brought up, and the moated house and garden in East Sussex that inspired the evocative setting for a Sherlock Holmes story. Follow in the footsteps of your favourite authors and be inspired by the surroundings in which some of literature's best-loved characters were created.

Foreword by: Julian Fellowes