Pub London's pubs had closed. The closures have been ascribed to factors such as changing tastes, rise in the cost of beer due to applied taxes and the increase in the Muslim population. Inns and taverns feature throughout English literature and poetry, from The Tabard Inn in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" onwards. The highwayman Dick Turpin used the Swan Inn at Woughton-on-the-Green in Buckinghamshire as his base. Jamaica Inn near Bolventor in Cornwall gave its name to a 1936 novel by Daphne du Maurier and a 1939 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. In the 1920s John Fothergill (1876–1957) was the innkeeper of
Daphne du Maurier novel into French and sent it to a publisher in Paris, who she learned was also Ms. du Maurier's [publisher] only after "Rebecca" became a worldwide success. The novels have identical plots and even some identical episodes." Author Frank Baker believed that du Maurier had plagiarised his novel "The Birds" (1936) in her short story "The Birds" (1952). Du Maurier had been working as a reader for Baker's publisher Peter Davies at the time he submitted the book. When Hitchcock's "The Birds" was released in 1963, based on du Maurier's story, Baker considered, but was advised against, pursuing costly litigation