Tag: fiction

Autumn Barlow, ‘Three Men in a Boat, on a Map’

November 24th, 2017Joanna Taylor0 Comments

Autumn Barlow is completing an MA in English Literature at Lancaster University. Jerome K Jerome’s short story Three Men in A Boat was published in 1889. It was originally intended to be a travel guide, but it soon became a humorous account of three men trying to have a boating holiday up the Thames. As my maps reveal, though, it’s much more than that. What could have been a straightforward line meandering up a river and back again is exploded across the world, and ultimately this book demonstrates the global consciousness of the average late Victorian reader – as well …

Reading and mapping Swallows and Amazons

September 13th, 2016Joanna Taylor0 Comments

On July 24 this year, the new film adaptation of Arthur Ransome’s children’s classic Swallows and Amazons (first published in 1930, and set in summer 1929) had its world premiere at the Theatre by the Lake in Keswick, one of the more frequently-visited towns in the Lake District National Park. The film, like the book on which it’s based, tells the story of the four Walker children – John, Susan, Titty (renamed Tatty in the film) and Roger – and their adventures on and around a Cumbrian lake. The film’s director, Philippa Lowthorpe, was drawn to the project because Ransome’s …