Writing Britain: Wastelands to Wonderlands

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 14th century – the earliest surviving manuscript of the medieval romance poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It includes a mysterious evocation of the Green Man in the form of a Green Knight. His head is cut off by Gawain, but he picks it up and rides away. The rich symbolism of the poem incorporates ideas of chivalry with pagan celebrations of rebirth and renewal. However some scholars have interpreted the Green Knight as representing the devil, as green was also associated with witchcraft. This rare manuscript is part of the ‘Rural Dreams’ section of Writing Britain. Green Man Wooden Carving

G K Chesterton, The Napoleon of Notting Hill, 1904 – the author’s sketchbook shows drawings of characters in the novel, which is set in a remarkably un-futuristic 1984. GK Chesterton re-imagines the ordinary as magical, placing fields of lavender at Lavender Hill, and lemon groves in Southfields. Only the character Adam Wayne, ‘Napoleon’, takes the call for local pride seriously. His devotion to Notting Hill precipitates a bloody war with Kensington, and introduces a ceremonial pomp that makes ‘the whole world romantic’. The writer’s sketchbook and printed book appear in the ‘Beyond the City’ section of the exhibition, inspired by Britain’s suburbs.

Emily Brontë’s ‘Gondal Poems’ notebook – Emily Brontë composed the poems in this notebook a decade before her more famous Wuthering Heights. Known as the Gondal Poems, they are based around the imaginary kingdoms she created with her siblings. The poem on display in the exhibition anticipates Wuthering Heights in its moorland setting and in the self-destructive love of its protagonists.

The exhibition is divided into six different themes relating to various British landscapes and environments which have lent themselves as inspiration to writers, poets and visual artists.

Rural Dreams

This section will look at quintessentially British rural literature and the different ways in which writers have used the British countryside in their works. From the pastoral idyll as a sentimental vision of a pre-industrial past to nature as a representation of death and chaos, writers have explored the vanishing world of rural Britain.

Also on display in the exhibition’s Rural Dreams section is:

J R R Tolkien’s original artwork for The Hobbit – this watercolour of ‘The Hill at Hobbiton’ is one of the most unusual representations of rural England, on loan from the Bodleian Library.
Thomas Hardy’s prepublication proof copy of Far From the Madding Crowd, corrected in the author’s own handwriting. This is shown alongside Posy Simmonds’s watercolour proofs for Tamara Drewe, the satirical reworking of the novel, kindly lent by the artist.
Kazuo Ishiguro’s manuscript for The Remains of the Day, kindly lent by the author, deals with the end of the great period of the country house and estate by following the butler Stevens as he travels around a quiet England.

Dark Satanic Mills

From the early 19th century onwards writers began to describe the effects of industrialisation, initially celebrating the changes. By the mid-19th century authors began to reveal the appalling conditions created in industrial centres such as Manchester and Birmingham. Later authors highlighted the effect of the economic depression of the 1920s-30s and the post-war desolation felt by many ahead of the rebirth of the provincial city in the 1950s and 1960s. The section ends with a move from social realism to contemporary traces of an industrial past.

Also on show in this section is: wastelands to wonderlands

Map of the Seat of War’ The Napoleon of Notting Hill, G K Chesterton, 012629.bb.10
George Orwell’s manuscript map, diary page and letter illustrating his experiences in the north of England, later published in the form of The Road to Wigan Pier, on loan from University College London.

George Eliot’s manuscript for Middlemarch (1871-72) addressing the implications of political, social and technological change upon a provincial town, such as the proposed building of a railway line.
William Wordsworth’s letter to Prime Minister WE Gladstone objecting to the proposed Kendal and Windermere Railway, in which he enclosed a sonnet: ‘Is no nook of English ground secure / From rash assault?’

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Writing Britain: Wastelands to Wonderlands

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