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
Jamaica Inn (film) test was sub par, but Laughton could not forget her eyes). After filming finished, Laughton brought her to Hollywood to play Esmeralda opposite his Quasimodo in 1939 version of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", where she became an international star. In March 1939, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood to begin his contract with David O. Selznick. Thus "Jamaica Inn " was his last British picture, as well as one of his most successful. Critics disparaged the film, largely because of the lack of atmosphere and tension which was present in the book, with its light-hearted, often camp banter, and portly landlord,