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The City of Derby |
Literary and cultural heritage |
Samuel Richardson, widely purported to have written the very first English novel Pamela: or, Virtue Rewarded (1740). Born in Derby, August 19th 1689
Novelist Maria Edgworth, 'the Irish Jane Austen', (1768-1849) and the philosopher John Cook Wilson were educated in Derby
The greater part of The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) were written near to the town of Ashbourne, Derbyshire
The novelist Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823) is said to have been sent insane by her gothic fantasies and as a result had to be incarcerated in a Derbyshire asylum
Lara Croft - Tombraider. Born 1996 in the city of Derby
Christopher Isherwood (author of Goodbye to Berlin upon which the Liza Minelli film Cabaret was based) and best friend of W H Auden , was educated at Repton near Derby, as were writer Jane Welch and the poet James Fenton
Writers currently living in Derbyshire include Hilary McKay, Wendy Holden and Berlie Doherty The town 'Snowfield' of George Eliot's Adam Bede is based on the Derbyshire town of Wirksworth
D.H. Lawrence lived at nearby Middleton in 1918-1919
Derby... birthplace of Harry Stevens, the man who invented the 'hot dog' in New York in the year 1901 and was known by baseball player Babe Ruth as 'my second dad'.
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Derbyshire Literary Connections Derbyshire in the Domesday Book Picture the Past Images of Derby and Derbyshire
"Derbyshire Born, Derbyshire Bred" John Cowper Powys, born Shirley, Derby, 1872
Derby actor Alan Bates
Derbyshire-born actor John Hurt
Other actors from Derbyshire include Timothy Dalton (James Bond), John Tams, Kevin Lloyd, John Wood, Jane Rossington, Robert Lindsay, Gwen Taylor, Arthur Lowe, Neville Buswell and Joan Rice
Artist Graham Sutherland once trained as a railway engineer at the Midland Works in Derby
Poet and author William Hutton (1723-1815) was born in Derby John Osborne's play Look Back in Anger is based on the period that he lived as a young man in Derby
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“Derby is a fine, beautiful, and pleasant town; it has more families of gentlemen in it than is usual in towns so remote, and therefore here is a great deal of good company.” Daniel Defoe, A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724)
William Congreve (1670-1729) wrote his first play The Old Bachelor at Ilam Hall in Derbyshire
V S Pritchett lived for a short time in Derby as a child Playwright John Clifford was born in Derby, as was actor/producer Stephen Leatherland
Benjamin Franklin was a regular visitor to the city of Derby between 1758 and 1771
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Detail from The Orrery c. 1763-1765 Joseph Wright of Derby 'There is not a finer county in England than Derbyshire' Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, chapter 8 On November 7th 1817 in Derby, Percy Bysshe Shelley witnessed the last ever instance of the penalty for high treason of hanging, drawing and quartering, of the 3 so-called 'Pentrich Plotters' Derbyshire, home of Dame Edith, Sir Osbert and Sir Sacheverell Sitwell After a visit to Derby in 1796 Samuel Taylor Coleridge described Elizabeth Evans of Darley House as "without exception the greatest woman I have been fortunate enough to meet in my brief pilgrimage through life"
James Boswell , in his Life of Johnson, wrote that (I) "felt a pleasure in walking about Derby such as I always have in walking about any town to which I am not accustomed. There is an immediate sensation of novelty; and one speculates on the way in which life is passed in it, which, although there is a sameness every where upon the whole, is yet minutely diversified." Liz Calder, co-founder of Bloomsbury Publishing, taught at a Derby school for 2 years Lord Byron's 12th century ancestors the de Burun family lived at Horsley Castle, just outside Derby Charles Kingsley in his novel Westward Ho! (Chapter 2) refers to the true story of the burning of blind martyr Joan Waste in Derby in 1556 for heresy In November 1830 William Wordsworth stayed in Derby after riding a pony from Westmoreland en route to Cambridge. He was caught in a severe storm between Chatsworth and Derby and entered the town 'both man and pony in a pitiable plight'
Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), writer and broadcaster Jeremy Clarkson, Sir Stuart Hampshire and the actor best known for his screen portrayals of Sherlock Holmes, Basil Rathbone were all educated at Repton, near Derby
Robert Stevenson, director of numerous films including Mary Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks and The Love Bug, was born in Derbyshire
Lytton Strachey, 1880-1932, author of Eminent Victorians and one of the so-called Bloomsbury Group, was educated at Abbotsholme School in Derbyshire. Richmal Crompton, 1890-1969, author of the Just William books, was educated (and later taught) at St Elphin's school in Derbyshire
Eric Maschwitz, lyricist of the songs A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square and These Foolish Things, was educated in Derbyshire Osnabruck and Toyota City, Derby's Twin Towns
Rex Preston, Derbyshire artist The Peak District and Derbyshire - Focus on Derby
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