From J.K. Rowling to Shakespeare

By Sarah Crane

It seems as though everywhere we’ve been we have stumbled across places where some of the greatest books have been born. From the cafes and cemeteries of Edinburgh to under the trees in Avebury, authors have found inspiration for their books.




In search of Ebenezer Scrooge 

When we were in Edinburgh a kind gentleman at a museum told us a story about a cemetery across the street. He told us that Charles Dickens came to that cemetery, Canongate Kirk Graveyard, and saw a tombstone that he thought read, “Ebenezer Scrooge, A Mean Man”, (really it said Ebenezer Scroggie, Meal Man) and this really made him think and wonder how this man must have lived in order to have people write that he was a mean man on his tombstone.  And so the story of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” was born.

Later that same day in Edinburgh, we decided we wanted to find a good place to get some ice cream. While we were walking down the streets towards the ice cream place, I noticed my dad had been hanging behind the rest of us and he appeared to have stopped to look at something. Curious, I walked back to where he was and realized we had just passed the café where J.K. Rowling wrote the first few Harry Potter books! Who knew that we would find “the birthplace of Harry Potter” on the way to getting ice cream! (Moral of the story is, ALWAYS get ice cream)



Janean walking on the walking trees

A few weeks later, we went to Avebury with my Crane grandparents who came to visit us from Texas. Avebury is the largest stone circle in all of Europe (even bigger than Stonehenge). So we were just walking along the paths seeing all these big rocks that had been there for thousands of years, and we saw this really cool looking tree. We stopped to take a closer look and saw the intricate root system as well as hundreds of ribbons that were tied onto the branches of the tree. We didn’t think much of it until my Grandma was looking at postcards and saw a postcard with that tree on it. Turns out, the tree we saw was where J. R. R. Tolken got the inspiration for the walking trees in The Lord of the Rings. Pretty cool huh?



Shakespeare's House

Continuing on this literary theme, we took a stop in Stratford-upon-Avon. Everyone’s heard of Shakespeare, right? Well he was born there, and turns out he’s shaped the English language even more than I ever knew! My favorite of his additions to the English language was a list of Shakespeare’s Insults. Why say someone is ugly when you could say that “scratching could not make it worse…such a face as yours”? Why say someone is stupid when you could say that “I was searching for a fool when I found you”? Why say someone is fat when you could say that “you are spherical, like a globe. I could find out countries in you”? I think I prefer Shakespeare’s insults. Now I’ve decided to devote all of my spare time to studying English literature. HA! Yeah right! My dad made me write that.

Just in case you're not feeling charitable ;)