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Literary tourism is a type of cultural tourism that deals with places and events from literary texts as well as the lives of their authors. This could include visiting particular place associated with a novel or a novelist, such as a
KwaZulu-Natal map
What is Literary tourism?
– WiseTour {{Authority control Cultural tourism Fiction Types of tourism
Literary tourism is a type of cultural tourism that deals with places and events from literary texts as well as the lives of their authors. This could include visiting particular place associated with a novel or a novelist, such as a writer's home
Writers' homes (sometimes writer's, author's or literary houses) are locations where writers lived. Frequently, these homes are preserved as historic house museums and literary tourism destinations, called writer's home museums, especially when t ...
, or grave site, following routes taken by a fictional characters, visiting places mentioned in poems, as well as visiting museums dedicated to specific writers, works, regional literatures, and literary genres.
Characteristics
Some scholars regard literary tourism as a contemporary type of secularpilgrimage
A pilgrimage is a travel, journey to a holy place, which can lead to a personal transformation, after which the pilgrim returns to their daily life. A pilgrim (from the Latin ''peregrinus'') is a traveler (literally one who has come from afar) w ...
. There are also long-distance walking routes associated with writers, such as the Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Literary realism, Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry ...
Way.
Literary tourists are specifically interested in how places have influenced writing and at the same time how writing has created place. In order to become a literary tourist you need only book-love and an inquisitive mindset; however, there are literary guides, literary maps, and literary tours to help you on your way. There are also many museums associated with writers, and these are usually housed in buildings associated with a writer's birth or literary career, such as their home
A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or more human occupants, and sometimes various companion animals. Homes provide sheltered spaces, for instance rooms, where domestic activity can be p ...
.
Tourism fiction
While most literary tourism is focused on famous works, more modern works that are written to specifically promote tourism are called tourism fiction. Modern tourism fiction can include travel guides within the story showing readers how to visit the real places in the fictional tales. With recent technological advances in publishing, digital tourism fiction books can even allow literary tourists to follow direct links to tourism websites related to the story. This can be done on new e-reading devices like the Kindle, iPad, iPhone, smart phones, tablets, and regular desktop and laptop computers. These links within the story allow readers to instantly learn about the real places without doing their own web searches. The first classic novel to take advantage of tourism fiction technology was F. Scott Fitzgerald's ''This Side of Paradise: Interactive Tourism Edition'', published by the Southeastern Literary Tourism Initiative in 2012. The tourism edition offered web links to tours of Princeton University, where Fitzgerald attended in real life and where the fictional protagonist in the novel Amory Blaine attended. The tourism edition also offered links toMontgomery, Alabama
Montgomery is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Alabama. Named for Continental Army major general Richard Montgomery, it stands beside the Alabama River on the Gulf Coastal Plain. The population was 2 ...
, where Fitzgerald fell in love with his future wife Zelda Sayre, much like the fictional character Amory fell in love with Rosalind.
Bookstore tourism
In addition to visiting author and book sites, literary tourists often engage in bookstore tourism, browsing local bookshops for titles specifically related to the sites as well as other regional books and authors.Tourism sites for specific writers and works, by country
China
* Du Fu Thatched Cottage,Chengdu
Chengdu; Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: ; Chinese postal romanization, previously Romanization of Chinese, romanized as Chengtu. is the capital city of the Chinese province of Sichuan. With a ...
* Lu Xun Native Place
Egypt
* Cavafy Museum,Alexandria
Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...
France
* Maison de Balzac * Maison de Victor Hugo * House of George SandGermany
* Goethe House,Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...
* Gutenberg Museum
Greece
* Drossinis Museum,Kifissia
Kifisia or Kifissia (also Kephisia or Cephissia; , ) is a municipality and one of the most affluent northern suburbs in the Athens agglomeration, Attica, Greece, mainly accessed via Kifissias Avenue, running all the way from central Athens up to ...
, Athens
Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...
* Nikos Kazantzakis Museum, Myrtia, Heraklion, Crete
Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...
* Papadiamantis House Museum, Skiathos
Japan
* Endo Shusaku Literary Museum,Nagasaki
, officially , is the capital and the largest Cities of Japan, city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan.
Founded by the Portuguese, the port of Portuguese_Nagasaki, Nagasaki became the sole Nanban trade, port used for tr ...
* Lafcadio Hearn Memorial Museum
*Osamu Dazai Memorial Museum
The , also commonly referred to as (), is a writer's home museum located in the Kanagi, Aomori, Kanagi area of Goshogawara, Aomori, Goshogawara in Aomori Prefecture, Japan. It is dedicated to the late author Osamu Dazai, who spent some of his ear ...
* Picture Book Museum
* Saka no Ue no Kumo Museum, Matsuyama, Ehime
270px, Matsuyama City Hall
270px, Ehime Prefectural Capital Building
is the capital city of Ehime Prefecture, on the island of Shikoku, in Japan and is also Shikoku's largest city. , the city had an estimated population of 505,948 in 243,541 h ...
* Shiki Museum, Matsuyama, Ehime
270px, Matsuyama City Hall
270px, Ehime Prefectural Capital Building
is the capital city of Ehime Prefecture, on the island of Shikoku, in Japan and is also Shikoku's largest city. , the city had an estimated population of 505,948 in 243,541 h ...
* Tōson Memorial Museum
Netherlands
*Anne Frank House
The Anne Frank House () is a writer's house and biographical museum dedicated to Judaism, Jewish wartime diarist Anne Frank. The building is located on a canal called the Prinsengracht, close to the Westerkerk, in Amsterdam-Centrum, central Amst ...
United Kingdom
* Brantwood (John Ruskin
John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English polymath a writer, lecturer, art historian, art critic, draughtsman and philanthropist of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as art, architecture, Critique of politic ...
)
* Brontë Parsonage
* Burns Cottage
* Carlyle's House
*Charles Dickens Museum
The Charles Dickens Museum is an author's house museum at 48 Doughty Street in King's Cross, London, King's Cross, in the London Borough of Camden. It occupies a typical Georgian architecture, Georgian terraced house which was Charles Dickens, ...
* Dove Cottage (William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poetry, Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romanticism, Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Balla ...
)
*Jane Austen's House Museum
Jane Austen's House Museum is a small independent museum in the village of Chawton near Alton, Hampshire, Alton in Hampshire. It is a writer's house museum occupying the 17th-century house (informally known as Chawton Cottage) in which novelist ...
, Chawton
* Keats House
* Sherlock Holmes Museum
United States
* Edgar Allan Poe Cottage,Bronx, New York
The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...
* Ernest Hemingway House
* Longfellow House, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...
* Paul Laurence Dunbar House
* Walt Whitman House, Camden, New Jersey
Camden is a City (New Jersey), city in Camden County, New Jersey, Camden County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is part of the Delaware Valley metropolitan region. The city was incorporated on February 13, 1828.Snyder, John P''The Story of ...
* Rowan Oak, Mississippi
Mississippi ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Alabama to the east, the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Louisiana to the s ...
* Thurber House, Columbus, Ohio
Columbus (, ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities in Ohio, most populous city of the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 United States census, 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the List of United States ...
Regional literary tourism sites
Japan
* Kamakura Museum of LiteratureSouth Africa
* KZN Literary Tourism,KwaZulu-Natal
KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN) is a Provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the government merged the Zulu people, Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu language, Zulu) and ...
South Korea
* Museum of Korean Modern LiteratureSee also
* Film tourism * Meisho * *Writer's home
Writers' homes (sometimes writer's, author's or literary houses) are locations where writers lived. Frequently, these homes are preserved as historic house museums and literary tourism destinations, called writer's home museums, especially when t ...
References
External links
What is Literary tourism?
– WiseTour {{Authority control Cultural tourism Fiction Types of tourism