The rural county of Gloucestershire is a great place to nurture a talent for writing words. Its stunning green splendour, a mixture of trees, rolling hills and pasture and arable fields punctuated by the Cotswold stone escarpment has inspired many writers and still does today. To its west lies the Forest of Dean, just as mysterious and the provider of many ideas for tales and stories. Here are some of its most famous and well-known writers who’ve gone on to find fame and to put the county into print.
Jilly Cooper – While not a natural-born Gloucestershire person, she’s certainly made this part of the world her home. The writer of stories centred around, love, home, family and marriage she’s one of the most prolific writers in the country. Still going strong at 85, her latest book, Between the covers. came out in 2020.
Laurie Lee – A resident of Slad near Stroud born and bred. Laurie Lee’s Cider with Rosie is seen as a brilliant examination of life growing up as rural poor in the early twentieth century. Abandoned by their father after the First world war, Lee explains the joys and difficulties he experienced. Other works concern his trips to Spain to fight in the Spanish civil war against the fascists. He stayed true to his rural home living in Slad from 1960 onwards until his death in 1997.
Joanna Trollope – Like Jilly Cooper above, Joanna is best known for her “Aga Sagas”. These are tales of rural married life and the people who live them. They are not as racy as Jilly’s but still focus on the romantic entanglements that human beings like to get themselves into. Many of the novels use a rural Gloucestershire-type setting as the landscape of her novels and where the story plays out.
There are many others to explore. The literal world of Gloucestershire awaits you.