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

Looking over Kelly, in west Devon Photo Julie Sampson Women Writing on the Devon Land A-Zof Devon Women Writers' Places   K for Kelly        Compared to my post for J and Jacobstowe , the K entry, in this A-Z of Devon Women Writers' Places, is going to be relatively easy. Admittedly, I was a bit split as to which Devon parish to choose for 'K.  Kentisbeare came close second because of E.M. Delafield, whose home was near the village, but the manuscript of Writing Women on the Devon Land  includes extensive commentary about that author and she appears in several blog-posts in my other blog, Scrapblog of the SouthWest . (See especially Delafield's Devon DoubleScapes  and Sad December at Kentisbeare; E. M. Delafield's Tragedies ).        So, here, I thought I'd travel westwards to Kelly , the small parish near Tavistock, which is straddling Devon's border with Cornwall. So you will find the village on Genuki fo...

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, ...

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. ...