From haunting remains of castles dotting the countryside to light-flooded stretches of coast, Britain's landscapes have inspired writers from Jane Austen and Daphne du Maurier to Virginia Woolf and Rudyard Kipling. Evocatively illustrated with paintings and photographs of sites made famous in classic books, Literary Trails invites readers to walk, drive, or sail through some of Britain's best-known literary landscapes, all of which have been preserved by the National Trust.

Author Christina Hardyment traces the route of Thomas Hardy's Tess across Wessex, wanders around the Lake District as Wordsworth did "lonely as a cloud", and follows the path of Alfred Lord Tennyson toward Tintagel in Cornwall in quest of the Arthurian legends. Maps and archival pictures illustrate each route, and photographs show the places as they are today, making Literary Trails both a pleasure for the armchair traveler and a practical guide for anyone planning a literary journey through Britain.