Explore the places and discover the people behind the books on a literary tour with Susannah Fullerton.
Visiting places connected with literature brings the excitement of recognizing homes and landscapes long familiar to the imagination, of connecting loved novels and poems with the lives and environments of the authors and seeing firsthand the countryside they described. An ASA Literary Tour led by Susannah includes visiting writers’ homes, seeing original manuscripts, attending theatre performances, browsing museums, and much more. In gardens, ruins, castles, villages, churches and graveyards you will discover the effect of environment on a writer and investigate the role played by a sense of place in literary creation.
9 MAY – 29 MAY 2025
Exploring More Literary Landscapes of England 2025
Exploring More Literary Landscapes of England will follow in the footsteps of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Daphne du Maurier, Virginia Woolf, Laurence Sterne, Rupert Brooke, Nancy Mitford, Agatha Christie and many other classic and popular writers. We will see the buildings they lived in, the fields and countryside that inspired them, the museums they have left behind them, and the manuscripts they laboured over. From stately homes to cottages, from graveyards to cathedrals, from tiny villages to bustling towns, from lush countryside to barren uplands, from the dales to the seaside, we will follow a variety of poets, novelists and playwrights and learn about their lives and writings.
See the full itinerary and make a booking here: Exploring More Literary Landscapes of England 2025
7 SEPTEMBER – 27 SEPTEMBER 2025
Exploring the Literary Landscapes of England
Visiting places connected with literature brings the excitement of recognizing homes and landscapes long familiar to the imagination, of connecting loved novels and poems with the lives and environments of the authors and seeing first hand the countryside they described. We will visit writers’ homes, view original manuscripts and enjoy theatre performances. In gardens, ruins, castles, villages, churches and graveyards we will examine the effect of environment on a writer and investigate the role played by a sense of place in literary creation. You will discover how the elegant classicism of Bath influenced Jane Austen, how a bleak industrial landscape shaped D.H. Lawrence and what it was about the wild moors that fired the Brontës’ imaginations. The tour begins in Chaucer’s Canterbury, moves through the gentle Hampshire countryside of Jane Austen to the Dorset of Thomas Hardy. James Herriot’s Yorkshire, the lakes of the Romantic poets and Shakespeare’s Stratford are included. Special visits to homes not open to the general public are arranged. Childhood favourites are not forgotten. We visit Beatrix Potter’s charming farmhouse and play poohsticks on the original Poohsticks Bridge. Throughout the tour our exploration of literary landscapes is enriched by dramatic readings and expert guides. Discover on this tour the literary delights of ‘this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England’!
See the full itinerary and make a booking here: Exploring the Literary Landscapes of England
10 APRIL – 28 APRIL 2025
Sicily: A Dimension of the Imagination
Sicily was inhabited 10,000 years ago. Strategically located in the Mediterranean, it became a crossroads of history, a pawn of conquest and empire, and a melting pot for all who came to its shores. Palermo is said to be the most conquered city on earth! This tour gives you the opportunity to explore this seductively beautiful island from literary, historical and artistic angles. The land of the Cyclops has been praised by poets from Homer to Virgil and there have, over the centuries, been many visiting writers. From Cervantes to Truman Capote, Sicily has lured authors from other lands, and many of them have written evocatively about the ruins, food, rich culture and people. We will follow in the footsteps of many of these literary visitors, from Goethe to D.H. Lawrence, Cicero to Lawrence Durrell, Alexander Dumas to Peter Robb. Shakespeare set two plays on the island, although he never actually visited. View Sicily through the eyes of an intriguing range of great writers.
See the full itinerary and make a booking here: Sicily: A Dimension of the Imagination
1 MAY – 8 MAY 2026
“Stepping Westward”: Rambles with the Poets in Wales
Wales is not a large country, but it has an enormous literary tradition that stretches back through centuries and is a source of great pride to the Welsh. Wales is the only country in the world that makes a poetry competition and crowning of the bard into the centrepiece of its biggest national event. The country has such a rich literary heritage – the tales in the 11th century Mabinogian, the 12th century historian Geoffrey of Monmouth (who promoted the story of King Arthur), Gerald of Wales, a very early travel writer who produced Journey through Wales in 1188, medieval poet Dafydd ap Gwilym, right through to Richard Llewellyn’s best-selling coal-mining novel How Green was my Valley and the turbulent and emotional poetry of Dylan Thomas. Wales has a rich history of music, internationally famed for its choirs and Eisteddfods, and music and poetry go well together. There have been many wonderful Welsh poets, from George Herbert and Henry Vaughan to R.S. Thomas, Edward Thomas, W.H. Davies, Vernon Watkins, and Dannie Abse.
See the full itinerary and make a booking here: “Stepping Westward”: Rambles with the Poets in Wales
18 SEPTEMBER – 8 OCTOBER 2026
“Birthplace of the Novel”: A Literary tour of Spain
In 1605 and 1615 the two parts of Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote were published, and the world was never the same again. This was the birth of the modern novel and every novelist can be grateful to Cervantes for starting this superb literary form.
This tour will take you in the footsteps of Cervantes and his immortal character, as well as to places associated with many other great Spanish writers, Lope de Vega, Lorca, Unamuno and Jiménez. So many visiting authors have fallen in love with Spain – Washington Irving, Hemingway, Orwell, Jessica Mitford and Laurie Lee, to name just a few – we will see what so impressed them.
Visit castles and ancient walled cities, libraries and theatres, cathedrals and gorges, grand plazas and humble literary homes. Some superb art will be included with works by El Greco, Goya, Velasquez, Picasso and Sorolla. Goethe called Spain “the beautiful country of wine and song”. Visit the glorious land that gave the world the novel, and so much more.
See the full itinerary and make a booking here: “Birthplace of the Novel”: A Literary tour of Spain
A literary tour brings together very special people – people who read, who delight in the power of words, who have rich imaginations, who love history and who have a sense of adventure. Susannah has been leading literary tours since 2000. Her tours include world-wide destinations to interest anyone who loves literature.
Susannah’s travel schedule is constantly changing, so the best place to see her latest tours is at the ASA Tours website, where you can contact them to book.
Further information and help
Please contact Susannah here.