Mapping ‘Wordsworthshire’: A GIS Study of Literary Tourism in Victorian Lakeland

Not least among many items of interest in Nathaniel Hawthorne's English Notebooks is the account of the trip the author took to the Lake District during the summer of 1855. Like most Victorian tourists travelling to the Lakes from Liverpool (where Hawthorne was stationed as the American consul), he and his family came to the region largely to recover their health. Two years of living in Liverpool, with its coal dust and damp, had taken their toll on his wife's constitution and his mood, and they had both come to regard the town as a 'black and miserable hole'. 1 'The most detestable place' , grumbled Hawthorne, 'that ever my lot was cast in -smoky, noisy, dirty, [and] pestilential.' 2 So, putting the muddy waters of the Mersey behind them, he and his family mainly spent the first days of their holiday enjoying the fresh air and pleasant scenery near the foot of Windermere. But fresh air and pleasant scenery were not the only attractions that drew the Hawthornes to the Lake District. Like many Victorian tourists, they had also come to indulge in a bit of literary sightseeing. Earlier that summer Hawthorne had taken his family to Leamington Spa, whence they had gone on a pilgrimage to Shakespeare's cottage in Stratford. While returning to Liverpool two weeks later, moreover, the author had put aside two days to take in Samuel Johnson's birthplace in Lichfield, as well as the site of the Doctor's penance in Uttoxeter's market square. Given this predilection for visiting places linked to Britain's literary past, it may come as little surprise that, soon after arriving in the Lakes, the Hawthornes set out to see the homes and haunts of the late Poet Laureate, William Wordsworth.