Waugh's digs at Piers Court, near Stinchcombe
For those of you entering this or that writing competition or perhaps applying for a grant, hoping to scrape together a few shekels so you can buy kitty litter – behold and weep!
Writing does not have to be a monastic dedication to a life of poverty – here are a few dwellings where famous writers had their desks and pencils. Probably lots of other stuff as well – including maids, gardeners, and butlers.
Obviously, they mostly did not begin poor. If one wants an independent income and a room of one’s own, it’s best to acquire them at birth. (The old joke: What does it take to make a small fortune as a writer? Answer: A large fortune.)
Vidal's domicile in Ravello, Italy
I’ve selected a few from Flavorwire’s 15 – based strictly on personal taste, the houses I would most love to live in.
Not surprisingly, Evelyn Waugh comes out tops with his home in Goucestershire. Given my love of the English countryside and its stately homes – is this any surprise?
And for the winter break, I’ll take Gore Vidal‘s home on the Amalfi coast, just for the landscaping. It’s also known for handmade paper and plenty of limoncello. Pray for no earthquakes.
Where he lived in exile: Hugo
Perhaps it’s only a lifelong and slightly cheesy love for Jean Valjean that makes me hanker for Victor Hugo‘s “Hauteville House,” at 38 Rue Hauteville in St. Peter Port in Guernsey, where he lived during his exile from 1856 to 1870. Hard to beat Guernsey for beautiful climate, and probably an improvement on Paris. This is the view from the garden, not the busy street. Thanks to the mild climate, the jardin is filled with trees and flowers. Well, rather like Palo Alto.
We can’t leave without citing the ur-house, and the only one of the bunch that I’ve seen face to face: William Shakespeare‘s house in Stratford. Shakespeare, to his credit, did make his own money, in sometimes less-than-savory ways (he was accused of hoarding).
The Bard's stomping grounds
I’ve seen lots of writers’ homes – Constantine Cavafy in Alexandria, Elizabeth Bishop in Samambaia, Mikhail Bulgakov in Kiev, Emily Dickinson in Amherst, C.S. Lewis in Oxford, Robinson Jeffers in Carmel, Alexander Pushkin in Moscow and Odessa,Winston Churchill at Blenheim and Chartwell, Czeslaw Milosz in Kraków and Berkeley and Lithuania, even John Milton‘s humble digs in Chalfont St. Giles, a couple miles from where I lived on the border of Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire.
Can’t say these top the preferred list – but they certainly stack up very well. See the rest here.
Tags: Evelyn Waugh, Gore Vidal, Victor Hugo, William Shakespeare
January 27th, 2012 at 11:52 pm
Thanks for the link to your terrific article about Cavafy’s home. I’d long wondered what trace of him remained in Alexandria, and whether anyone there cared about his legacy.
The house on the Flavorwire list that most amuses me is Twain’s Connecticut mansion. Its eclectic Gothic Revival style is surprisingly close to the sort of thing Twain railed against whenever he encountered it in the South.
January 28th, 2012 at 12:23 am
Glad you liked it! I wrote that, however, over a decade ago.
In recent weeks, I’ve wondered what’s happened to that little flat in Alexandria. As you probably know from some of my other posts (if not the MSM), the position of the big library is somewhat uncertain, despite international attention. Cavafy’s place already had a question mark over it when I was writing. What now?