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 "Trilby". Her elder sister, Angela du Maurier, also became a writer, and her younger sister Jeanne was a painter. Du Maurier's family connections helped her establish her literary career, and she published some of her early work in Beaumont's "Bystander" magazine. Her first novel, "The Loving Spirit," was published in 1931. Du Maurier was also a cousin of the Llewelyn Davies boys, who served as J. M. Barrie's inspiration for the characters in the play "Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up". As a young child, Du Maurier met many prominent theatre actors, thanks to the celebrity of