Literary England

Where 1,669 English writers were born. Click a place to meet them.

Map: © OpenStreetMap contributors. The map loads its tiles from OpenStreetMap.

Most productive places

• London 420 writers
  Virginia Woolf, Geoffrey Chaucer, William Blake, John Keats, Ada Lovelace, Thomas More …
• Manchester 29 writers
  Frances Hodgson Burnett, Thomas De Quincey, Johnny Marr, Jeanette Winterson, Howard Jacobson, Taylor Caldwell …
• Liverpool 25 writers
  Clive Barker, Julian Lennon, Peter Shaffer, Stephen Baxter, Edwina Currie, Felicia Hemans …
• Bristol 23 writers
  Robert Southey, Jack Thorne, Mike Hodges, Mary Darby Robinson, Andrew Miller, Christopher Fry …
• Birmingham 21 writers
  Enoch Powell, Fay Weldon, Mike Skinner, Jonathan Coe, Sax Rohmer, Kenneth Tynan …
• England 16 writers
  Terry Hayes, George Ripley, Stella Benson, B. A. Paris, Holly Smale, Robert Sherard …
• Oxford 15 writers
  Martin Amis, Dorothy L. Sayers, P. D. James, E. P. Thompson, William Davenant, Vivian Stanshall …
• Brighton 15 writers
  Katie Price, Aubrey Beardsley, Conor Maynard, Peter James, David Garnett, Clementina Black …
• Cambridge 14 writers
  Syd Barrett, Simon McBurney, Ralph Brown, Astro Teller, James Runcie, Richard Cumberland …
• Leeds 12 writers
  William Congreve, Alfred Austin, Tony Harrison, E. R. Eddison, Jeremy Dyson, Glen Baxter …
• Nottingham 10 writers
  Lennie James, Susanna Clarke, Alan Sillitoe, Philip James Bailey, Cecil Roberts, Lucy Diamond …
• Norwich 9 writers
  Philip Pullman, Harriet Martineau, China Miéville, Robert Greene, Amelia Opie, Ralph Hale Mottram …
• Sheffield 9 writers
  A. S. Byatt, Bruce Chatwin, Margaret Drabble, Oliver Herford, Barbara Hofland, Helen Mort …
• Kent 8 writers
  John Gower, Ian Stewart, Hope Mirrlees, Jonathan Bate, Robert Sidney, 1st Earl of Leicester, Peter Quennell …
• Leicester 8 writers
  Julian Barnes, Kate O'Mara, Colin Wilson, Anne Fine, Thomas Cooper, Caroline Biggs …
• Kensington 8 writers
  G. K. Chesterton, Antony Beevor, Stephen Spender, Leonard Woolf, Paul Nash, Guy Walters …
• Newcastle upon Tyne 7 writers
  Mick Herron, Lee Hall, Mark Akenside, Edward Docx, Jane Gomeldon, Keith Armstrong …
• York 7 writers
  W. H. Auden, Kate Atkinson, John Flaxman Jr., Andrew Martin, Henrietta Eliza Vaughan Stannard, Harriet Parr …
• Rugby 7 writers
  Rupert Brooke, M. John Harrison, Rose Macaulay, Margaret Louisa Woods, Anne Ridler, St. John Lucas …
• Hampstead 7 writers
  Stephen Fry, Jackie Collins, Mina Loy, Alec Waugh, Herbert Asquith, Geoffrey Scott …
• Q22905 7 writers
  J. B. Priestley, Derek Benfield, Oliver Onions, Steph Swainston, Paul Bayes, Zoë Skoulding …
• Maidstone 6 writers
  Jojo Moyes, Thomas Wyatt, John Gribbin, Peter Wolfe, Wendy Wood, Bill Lewis
• Westminster 6 writers
  Nigel Planer, Ray Strachey, Charles Churchill, Caroline Grosvenor, Robert Copland, George Stepney
• Hertfordshire 6 writers
  Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, Deborah Moggach, Guy Bolton, Shaun Hutson, Sir Richard Fanshawe, 1st Baronet, Ralph Chubb