The Chiswick Timeline of Writers & Books lists around 425 writers who have written a book and lived in Chiswick W4, or written books about the area. For details see A Quick Guide. It includes the creators of some of the country’s greatest works, from Thackeray’s Vanity Fair to Osborne’s Look Back in Anger and Pinter’s The Caretaker.
We launched the Writers Trail map (detail above) in September 2018, listing 21 distinguished novelists, poets and playwrights. You can pick up a copy at St Michael & All Angels Church in Bath Road W4, Foster Books and other locations.
In October 2018, we launched Phase One of the Timeline, listing 175 writers who have lived in ChiswickW4 or written about the area. In April 2019, Phase Two, we added 75 more names and weblinks, bringing the total to 250. That month, the Observer wrote: “Chiswick may be Britain’s most literary location. In September/October 2019, Phase Three, we added more than 90 names, taking the total to around 350. In early 2020, it grew to more than 400.
See Chiswick Timeline of Writers & Books: how it grew.
The Festival is now asking local residents for help in identifying the roads with the most writers. Early front-runners include Strand on the Green, where residents have been catalogued by the Brentford & Chiswick Local History Society, and Chiswick Mall, featured on the Panorama of the Thames project, including Walpole House, home to several notable writers. See also the Writers Trail map above.
If you have suggestions for this – or for other names and stories to be included on the Chiswick Timeline of Writers and Books – please email: admin@chiswickbookfestival.net.
For privacy reasons, we shall name only former residents of a road, not current ones – unless these authors invite us to do so.