Women Writing on the Devon Land: A County's Women Who Wrote - circa 1965

At Jacobstowe church Women Writing on the Devon Land A-Zof Devon Women Writers' Places  Just in Jacobstowe Well, for anyone who may previously have stumbled upon this blog and given up bothering to look again, thinking I'd forgotten to update it, here I am - and it is - again. Yes, admittedly I have been preoccupied with other writing projects, but the impasse here, in this A-Z was the letter. 'J' - and the complex deliberations involved as I tried to identify the identity of a certain Saxon lady.       If any of you out there knows of a woman writer back through the centuries (before about 1960) who has lived in or has an important connection with a parish in Devon beginning with J, please let me know!       But then, at the outset I am restricted, given that there is only one 'J' parish. Jacobstowe! I love the parish; before the large family decamped down to Brixham it was the childhood home of my maternal grandmother, who recounted m

I ... Ilfracombe Scenes around Ilfracombe Photo Julie Sampson A - Z of Devon Places and Women Writers  Said to be Rev., John Chanter and his wife Charlotte Kingsley Chanter outside their vicarage home in Ilfracombe. (Photo copy from Ilfracombe Museum)          Ilfracombe has enticed various women writers and in this A-Z it was the obvious choice to represent 'I'. Most famously,  although she was a visitor to Devon,   George Eliot stayed in the town in 1856, at the beginning of her literary career. Her  contemporary,  Charlotte Chanter , daughter of Reverend Charles Kingsley , and sister of the more famous authors Charles, Henry and George was local and is the central focus of this blog piece. Charlotte  wrote several novels, including   Over the Cliffs   as well as a travel memoir,  Ferney Combes , 1856, an unusual book about her driving tour with husband across Devon looking for ferns. Charlotte Chanter (1828-1882) in 1856 wrote a short ‘guide’

Exeter Environs A - Z of Devon Places & Women Writers  E is Easy         Well, at first glance, Exeter 'for E' seems an easy choice of places for this A-Z of Devon women writers,  in the sense that many writers linked with Devon were also connected with the city. But, when I sat down to begin writing this piece I realised that actually Exeter may be one of the hardest of this A-Z of Devon places. In other words, perhaps too many of the writers on my lists were closely associated with Exeter! It would be possible to have a whole blog devoted just to them.  I've found information that shows us women writing in one way or other from the earliest historical records right up to the mid C20. In the book I'm completing, Exeter is threaded like a gem throughout the text as a central county hub, which connects individuals to one another and through the centuries. This is no surprise of course, as Exeter represents a historical slice of time for Devon.