Top 10 books set in Cornwall
‘W
hy am I so incredibly and incurably romantic about Cornwall?” wrote Virginia Woolf in 1921. For centuries, the natural beauty of Cornwall has captured the imagination of writers and the resulting literature is as varied as the landscape itself, from sunny novels that revel in the picturesque to authentic and unflinching depictions of one of the poorest regions in northern Europe.
My own approach to writing about Cornwall is one of both escapism and realism. The Shell House Detectives grew out of a longing for the wide-open skies and seas of Penwith during that endless winter of 2020/21. An image kept returning to me of a weatherboard house in the dunes; an unlikely friendship forged in a moment of crisis. As much as I play into the conventions of the cosy crime genre, I’ve also drawn my own line in the sand, conjuring a world that I hope is enchanting but also feels real.
Taken together, the books I’ve chosen here offer a view that spans far wider than the picture postcards. When I dream of Cornwall – much like Woolf, incurably, romantically – it’s with my eyes open.
1. The Lip by Charlie Carroll
Melody Janie lives alone in a clifftop caravan at Bones Break, a remote spot that’s as beautiful as it is brutal. Here she spies on tourists, despairing at their casual disregard for people and landscape. This cleverly woven story repays rereading as the full extent of Melody’s harrowing experience becomes clear. The Lip is a tender and stirring reminder that each of us has the power to make a difference. It shows a side of Cornwall that many holidaymakers rarely see, or perhaps determinedly turn away from.
2. Rough Music by Patrick Gale
A beachside bungalow in the fictional village of Polcamel provides the setting for this elegant dual time-frame novel. Set over the course of two separate family holidays, around 30 years apart, Rough Music explores the distant reaches of memory and the immediacy of desire, with equal brilliance and no little heartbreak. In both past and present, charismatic strangers disrupt the holiday rhythms; despite the languid sea swims and veranda lounging, when the clouds roll in and the storm breaks, the wreckage is immense.
3. Homesick by Catrina Davies
Davies is lost in Bristol, barely making her rent, when she packs up and travels to Land’s End, the landscape of her often-precarious childhood. There she settles in a dilapidated shed that once belonged to her dad: “I wanted to watch the stars move slowly across the sky, and be reminded of how tiny I was, how brief my life. How beautiful my home.” Homesick is an impassioned commentary on the housing crisis and the reality of living in a place where people are pushed out by high prices and low income. It’s also a paean to soulful living and a story that’s suffused with hope.
4. The Lighthouse by PD James
Combe – a make-believe island off the Cornish coast – offers a secluded retreat for VIPs and the perfect setting for a locked-room mystery. While the crime here is far from cosy, I find this classy piece of detective fiction very comforting. James’s prose is cool and crisp, with the topography of the island as exactingly described as the interiors of the scattered cottages or the psychology of the suspects. The coastal stay proves transformational for Commander Dalgliesh and his city-dwelling team, despite the horrors that unfold: “gently and quietly Combe exerted its mysterious power.”
5. A Year of Marvellous Ways by Sarah Winman
A magical novel about a young war-damaged man called Drake and 89-year-old Marvellous, who lives alone in a creek-side caravan. When they cross paths, Drake is in the depths of grief but with generosity, quick wits and a steady flow of moonshine, Marvellous reaches him. The Cornish landscape is gloriously conjured and while Marvellous lives a hidden sort of life, her heart is wide open to anyone and anything. “Never get old,” she whispers, but my take-home is, with age, be more Marvellous.
Dazzling, heartfelt … Wyl Menmuir. Photograph: Ben Mostyn/the Guardian
6. The Draw of the Sea by Wyl Menmuir
Menmuir travels the Cornish coastline and the Isles of Scilly meeting beachcombers, freedivers, surfers and those whose livelihoods are tied to the waves. These personal accounts, interwoven with both the story of Menmuir’s own relationship with the ocean and a rallying cry to protect it, makes for an intimate exploration of what the sea means to all of us. A dazzling, heartfelt work that I’ll return to again and again: for solace, inspiration and invigoration.
7. Yoruba Man Walking by Bernardine Evaristo
Evaristo’s powerful short story appears in Closure, a collection of Black British short stories. It’s the 1880s and, after 20 years at sea, Lawani heads inland. Passing through the Cornish harbour town he draws stares, but “he had learned to become metal, inside and out”. He finds work at a tin mine and marries a local girl in a vividly drawn romance. As Lawani works underground his mind travels: he contemplates fatherhood and longs for his hometown of Lagos and the freedom of the ocean. An important story about loss of identity and the erasures of history. While it’s perfect in form, I’d have happily stayed with these compelling characters for a novel or more.
8. The Swordfish and the Star by Gavin Knight
This work is named for two of Newlyn’s once-notorious pubs, where “the ‘quaint’ surface is not the whole picture”. Knight spent two years speaking to inhabitants of West Penwith and the Lizard and the result is a vibrant work. There are tall tales here, adventures on the high seas and in the harbourside inns, as well as moments of understated poignancy. As the free-flowing narrative moves from fishermen to artists, from entrepreneurs to lifeboat staff, it’s impossible not to be swept along.
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9. The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
In this spirited short story, Sherlock Holmes is suffering from exhaustion and, on the advice of his doctor, is holidaying in fictional Poldhu Bay. The landscape is rendered bleakly, from “the sinister semicircle of Mounts Bay” to the “lonely and dun-coloured moors”. Holmes is soon called to investigate a disturbing death and before long has a theory and is dragging Watson into a wild experiment to prove it. Holmes of course solves the crime and returns to London rejuvenated.
10. The Feast by Margaret Kennedy
First published in 1950, The Feast is a treat from start to finish. It’s 1947 and the Pendizack Hotel has been buried after the collapse of a cliff. The story unfolds during the week leading up to the disaster like a murder mystery. Owners, staff and guests are exquisitely rendered, with the maid – smart, kind and capable Cornish girl Nancibel – our North Star. When Nancibel says of the hotel that “nobody could be happy inside a mile of it”, as a reader, I must disagree.
The Shell House Detectives by Emylia Hall is published by Thomas and Mercer (£8.99)
This article was corrected on 17 August to indicate that The Swordfish and the Star is not a novel.