Canterbury: A city rich in literary links

Canterbury is famous for many things: its majestic Cathedral, the cobbled streets and the historical buildings. But for any self-proclaimed bookworm, Canterbury has an extra charm, for it was the inspiration for many great works including The Canterbury Tales and David Copperfield.

When we rebranded our properties, we wanted to draw on these literary links and this is how The Copperfield, The Chaucer, The Marlowe, The Little Marlowe and the Faustus were named.

Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens spent much of his adult life in Kent, living in Gravesend, Rochester and Chatham. From these homes, he often travelled to Canterbury, and it is thought that the city became the inspiration for his 1849 novel The Personal History of David Copperfield. This novel was known to be one of his favourites and is full of references to Canterbury, showing how fond he was of the city. If you take a stroll down Palace Street, you will see a quirky but beautiful 17^th century timber building with the quote from David Copperfield written above the door. The building is now home to a wonderful bookshop called Catching Lives which raises funds to support the homeless in the city and is the perfect place to stock up on your next books.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer was an English poet and author who is considered the “Father of English Literature”. He is probably most famous for his Canterbury Tales which follow a group of pilgrims as they travel from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The tales are a collection of 24 stories written in Middle English and they form a competition between the pilgrims as they make their way to Canterbury. The prize for this contest is a free meal at The Tabard Inn in Southwark on their return.

Christopher Marlowe

Christopher Marlowe was an English playwright, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. Otherwise affectionately known as Kit, he was born in Canterbury and baptised at St George’s church on 26 February 1564. He also attended The King’s School in Canterbury on scholarship before taking up his place at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Marlowe was prolific in his work and is thought to have inspired William Shakespeare, with some academics even arguing that Marlowe faked his own death and wrote under the pseudonym of Shakespeare! During his career, he produced Dr Faustus, an Elizabethan tragedy about a scholar summoning up the devil Mephastophilis whilst learning about the dark arts.

Have these great literary works inspired you to come and visit Canterbury?

Property by Polygon provides self-catering holiday lets in Canterbury City Centre.

Book now to enjoy the literary links that Canterbury has to offer.