​It was in Room 16 of this legendary Left Bank hotel that Oscar Wilde quipped from his deathbed: "I suppose I shall have to die above my means". Today the hotel highlights this literary connection with the Oscar Wilde Suite, which features the author's unpaid hotel bill mounted on the wall. 

​Wilde would be glad to know that the wallpaper he so famously disliked ("My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go.") has been replaced. In fact, the entire hotel has undergone extensive renovations in recent years, making it one of Paris' most luxurious boutique hotels. 
 
13 Rue des Beaux Arts
75006 Paris
www.l-hotel.com

Tucked away at the edge of Montmartre, this elegant hotel is a local favourite thanks to its rooftop bar with Eiffel Tower views. The Terrass also boasts an unlikely literary claim to fame: it was here that Hans and Margeret Rey began the children's stories that would later become Curious George. 

12-14 Rue Joseph de Maistre
75018 Paris 
www.terrass-hotel.com 

The novel begins at Norland Park, a fictional estate in Sussex. Austen doesn't describe Norland in great detail, only that it was "fine old house in the county of Sussex". Having spent most of her life neighbouring Hampshire, Austen would have been fairly familiar with Sussex and we know that she spent some time in Brighton and Worthing. 
 
When the family home is entailed away after the death of Mr Dashwood, Mrs Dashwood and her daughters move to Devonshire and take up residence in Barton Cottage "within four miles northward of Exeter". The cottage belongs to Sir John and Lady Middleton of Barton Park, which is believed to be a fictional version of Pynes House. 
 
A large portion of the novel takes place in London, where Marianne and Elinor stay at the home of Mrs Jennings on Berkeley Street, off Portman Square. 

Situated in the heart of Mayfair, this luxury London hotel has long been a favorite among literary and artistic circles. The Dorchester began hosting the famous Foyles Literary Luncheons in the 1930's, which allowed readers the opportunity to mingle with well-known authors and discuss their latest works. Always a popular destination for movie stars, the hotel has also hosted literary notables such as Somerset Maugham and Cecil Day Lewis. 

Park Lane, Mayfair
London, W1K1QA 

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One of London's original grand hotels, The Langham has attracted a parade of rich and famous guests over the years, from Napoleon III  to Princess Diana, as well as literary giants like Mark Twain. In 1889, the hotel hosted an important meeting between Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle and a literary agent, who persuaded the men to write for his magazine. This encounter led to Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and Conan Doyle's second Sherlock Holmes story,  The Sign of Four. 

​Living nearby, Conan Doyle was a regular visitor to The Langham and featured the hotel in several Sherlock Holmes stories. Just a short walk from the Sherlock Holmes Museum, The Langham is the perfect destination for fans of the fictional detective. 
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1c Portland Place
Regent Street 
London 
W1B 1JA

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Located on its own tidal island, this iconic Devon hotel was a favorite of local author Agatha Christie, who's novel And Then There Were None was set on a fictionalised version of Burgh Island. Built in 1929, this stunning Art Deco building was lovingly restored in 2006 and still retains all of its 1930's glamour. The hotel hosts regular murder mystery parties and jazz evenings, as well an annual luncheon during the Agatha Christie festival in September. 

Burgh Island Hotel
Bigbury-on-Sea 
South Devon TQ7 4BG 

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While staying at this iconic Edinburgh hotel in 2007, J.K. Rowling finished her final novel in the Harry Potter series. To commemorate the event, Rowling signed a marble bust of Hermes in her suite with the inscription: "JK Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in this room (552) on 11th Jan 2007". In 2010, the author appeared in a televised interview with Oprah Winfrey at the hotel.
 
The Balmoral
1 Princes Street
Edinburgh EH2 2EQ
Scotland

Beatrix Potter bought this large country house for her recently widowed mother in 1915. The Potter family had previously stayed here as guests and it was during one of those visits that Beatrix completed the illustrations for Timmy Tiptoes and Pigling Bland. Now a charming hotel, Lindeth Howe offers a relaxing lakeside retreat.  

Lindeth Drive
Longtail Hill
Bowness-on-Windermere
Cumbria LA23 3JF

Founded in 1837, Brown's Hotel boasts an illustrious history and a long list of notable literary guests including Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde, JM Barrie and Arthur Conan Doyle. It was here that Mark Twain famously shocked London society by appearing in the lobby in his dressing gown and slippers. Today guests can opt to stay in the Kipling Suite, where Rudyard Kipling once worked on The Jungle Book. 

​Albemarle St
Mayfair
London W1S 4BP

Situated in the heart of Knightsbridge, this boutique hotel boasts a fascinating history. Built in 1887, the hotel was once home to Lillie Langtry, a stage actress and mistress to King Edward VII. A close friend of Langtry, Oscar Wilde was also a regular visitor and in 1895, Wilde was arrested here in room 118 (pictured). The hotel is currently undergoing an extensive renovation and will reopen as The Belmond Cadogan later this year. 
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75 Sloane Street 
Knightsbridge 
London, SW1X 9SG
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One of Sir Ian Fleming's favourite watering holes, the bar of this five-star London hotel is famed for its dry Martinis and it is thought to be the origin of the phrase 'shaken not stirred'. With its luxurious suites and legendary bar, Dukes London is just the kind of place James Bond would have stayed. 

35 St James's PL
St. James's, Mayfair
Sw1A 1NY

Just a few steps from the sandy beaches of Viking Bay, this charming seaside hotel dates back to 1776. Charles Dickens frequented the Royal Albion during his regular visits to Broadstairs, before taking up residence at nearby Bleak House. The hotel plays an important role in the town’s annual Dickens festival in June. ​

6 – 12 Albion Street
Broadstairs
CT10 1AN
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Beloved children's author, Enid Byton was a regular visitor to this Dorset hotel in the 1950's and it was on one of her many visits here that she first discovered Brownsea Island, which featured as Whispering Island in Five Have a Mystery to Solve. 

​Knoll House
Ferry Road, Studland,
Dorset, BH19 3AH

It's rare to visit a stately home because its connection to someone who lived downstairs and not upstairs, but that's exactly what brought me to Uppark House near Petersfield in West Sussex. It was here that H.G. Wells' mother, Sarah Neal, worked as a ladies' maid for Miss Frances Bullock and where she met her future husband, Joseph Wells, the resident gardner. The couple eventually moved to Kent and went on to have four children, including Herbert George, or Bertie, in 1866. When the Wells fell on hard times, Sarah returned to work as a housekeeper at Uppark and unusually, young H.G. was allowed to stay with his mother and even granted access to the library. It was here that he got his first taste of the classics and he would go on to use in the house in two of his novels, Time Machine and Tono-Bungay. 

The downstairs is connected through a series of underground tunnels so that the servants could remain out of sight while going about their work. Wells later drew on this subterranean world in Time Machine, with the Morlocks, a subhuman species who operated the below-ground machinery which makes the world of the beautiful, surface-dwelling Eloi  possible. 
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Set in the beautiful South Downs, Uppark boasts sweeping views of the surrounding countryside and on a clear day you can see as far as the coast (or so I'm told). In Tono-Bungay, the house features as Bladeswell, which is 'up on the Kentish Downs', and represents a 'seventeenth-century system' that is 'the clue to all England'.
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In 1881, his mother sent him to work at a chemist in nearby Midhurst, where he also attended the local grammar school. It was here that Wells really came into his own and eventually earned a place at the Royal College of Science in London. 

With news of ITV's plans to make a new adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, many Austen fans are already speculating on who will be cast in the leading roles. Personally, I don't believe anyone could ever top the BBC's 1995 version or Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth and Darcy, but I can't say I won't watch the new version. As always the case with a period drama, I'll be as interested in the producer's choice of filming locations as much as the actors, particularly when it comes to Mr Darcy's Pemberley.  

While the 1995 version featured Lyme Park in Cheshire, the 2005 film version was filmed at Chatsworth House, the Peak District home of the Duke of Devonshire. This was a natural choice for the film's producers as it's thought that Jane Austen actually modelled Darcy's estate on Chatsworth. Austen visited Chatsworth in 1811, while staying in nearby Bakewell. At the time of her visit, Austen was finishing work on Pride and Prejudice and drew inspiration from her travels around the Peak District.  It's clear from her descriptions of Pemberley in the novel that her visit to Chatsworth left quite an impression.
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In Chapter 43 of Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet visits Pemberley while touring the Peak District with her aunt and uncle and is instantly taken with the house and its surroundings:
 
"Elizabeth's mind was too full for conversation, but she saw and admired every remarkable spot and point of view. They gradually ascended for half a mile, and then found themselves at the top of a considerable eminence, where the wood ceased, and the eye was instantly caught by Pemberley House, situated on the opposite side of a valley, into which the road, with some abruptness, wound. It was a large, handsome, stone building, standing well on rising ground, and backed by a ridge of high woody hills; and in front, a stream of some natural importance was swelled into greater, but without any artificial appearance. Its banks were neither formal, nor falsely adorned. Elizabeth was delighted.  She had never seen a place for which nature had done more, or where natural beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste. They were all of them warm in their admiration; and at that moment she felt that to be mistress of Pemberley might be something!"
 
After visiting Mr Darcy's estate, Elizabeth really starts to appreciate the man, lamenting that she might have been mistress of all this. A closer reading tells us that she's not just in love with his property, but the way that his house complements nature and vice versa. Basically, Mr Darcy is not just a man of wealth, but one of substance. But looking at Pemberley (Chatsworth), who could blame her for swooning over his house!
 

​In the story, Elizabeth is eager to leave Pemberley after an awkward encounter with Mr Darcy. Luckily, visitors to Chatsworth today needn't rush off after touring the property.  In fact, they're quite welcome to make themselves at home at one of the estate's many holiday properties. Although you can't actually stay in Chatworth House itself, there are several options scattered across this sprawling estate. Visitors can choose from converted barns, renovated farm houses, charming cottages or even a 16th Century hunting tower, offering splendid views of the grounds.

Nothing I could ever say about Monroeville could possibly set the scene better than Harper Lee's introduction to Maycomb. Of course, there striking differences between the modern day place and the Depression Era town Lee depicts in the novel. The streets are paved and there are no mules and carts to be seen. And yet it still seemed to me to be something of 'a tired old town', though I can scarcely imagine that it ever could have been hotter than it was during my visit. Southerners will often tell you that it wasn't as hot 'back then'. I've always thought that it was the introduction of air conditioning that made everyone feel the heat more. Perhaps Lee was enjoying a spot of air conditioning herself when she wrote those lines and thinking back to the time before they had it. 

But it certainly felt hot to me when I stepped out of my air conditioned rental car onto North Alabama Avenue in front of the courthouse. This place is well and truly off the beaten path. Fortunately for me, it only involved an hourlong detour on the six hour drive from the Atlanta airport to my grandmother's house in Mississippi. It's a place I have wanted to come for sometime, I regret that I wasn't able to get there before Harper Lee passed away. I know, I know. It's not as if I would have been able to meet her, but it would have been nice to know she was still there. After all, Monroeville is still a small town and I would have truly felt that I was in the presence of greatness. 

Few books have stuck with me like To Kill A Mockingbird and I know I'm not alone. Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel always ranks high reader polls.  In my mind, the novel and the film are inseparable. This is perhaps due to the way it was taught at school - our teacher showed us the movie as soon as we finished reading the book. Those were always the best days at school and I would look forward to English class all day, when the teacher would turn off the lights and pull out the old TV on a book cart. School almost felt cozy then and even though I was sure many of my classmates had never seen anything in black and white, they were all completely captivated by it. 
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As many times as I read it or watch the classic movie, the story grabs hold of me like I'm hearing it for the first time. Reading it as a young girl, I was always in awe of Scout, her plucky courage and outspokeness. But now when I read it, I am simply in awe of Harper Lee. For it seems to me that not a single word is out of place. How did she do it? Since the contraversial publication of Go Set a Watchman, Lee's first attempt at a novel, we can now see a part of the process that led to her masterpiece and although I personally disagree with the publishers' decision to release it, it did help to see just how much work Lee had to put it in. 

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 As the centre of Bohemian Paris shifted from Montmartre to Montparnasse at the start of the 20th Century, artists like Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall began to frequent La Rotonde where they brushed shoulders with Russian revolutionaries and later with Alice Prin, the singer and artists' model known as 'Kiki' or the Queen of Montparnasse. During the interwar period, the Surrealists took over along with American expat authors and members of the Lost Generation including Authur Miller, F. Scott. Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, as well as George Gershwin. 

You may recognise this hole-in-the-wall from Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris. In the film, it's here that Owen Wilson's character first meets Ernest Hemingway. Located in the Latin Quarter, this historic restaurant was one of the author's many haunts as it was popular with the intellectual set of his day. Over the years, everyone from Victor Hugo to James Joyce has dined at Le Polidor and it's fair to say that the cuisine hasn't changed much in that time (nor have the facilities - the toilet is 'Turkish style', which basically means a hole in the floor with foot prints to stand in).

One of several Montparnasse cafés favoured by artists and intellectuals at the turn of the century - Paul Verlaine and Emile Zola and Charles Baudelaire were regulars. After World War I, La Closerie became a regular hangout for American expat authors. Here Hemingway worked on The Sun Also Rises and read Fitzgerald's manuscript of The Great Gatsby. 

Driving into Atlanta today, it’s hard too see beyond the modern city of skyscrapers and flashy Coca-Cola billboards. The noticeable lack of antebellum buildings downtown serves to remind us of the city’s violent fall in the Civil War – when General Sherman notoriously burned it to the ground in his March to the Sea.