Here is our pick of books set in Yorkshire
![Author Glenda Young in South Bay with one of her cosy crime books which are in Scarborough](https://www.halifaxcourier.co.uk/webimg/b25lY21zOmRjOGU1NDA4LTZmNGUtNGNjZS1hM2I5LTg5YzEzZWFhNjU3OTo2MDQ1ODQxYy1jN2NhLTQ2NjUtYjAwMS03NzI0MDk5ZjdmNjI=.jpg?crop=3:2,smart&width=640&quality=65&enable=upscale)
![Author Glenda Young in South Bay with one of her cosy crime books which are in Scarborough](/img/placeholder.png)
The setting is as tough and rough as the lives of the men who risk the gallows to earn a decent living and help those in poverty – Robin Hood with spurs on.
With Gallows Pole in mind we look at other Yorkshire settings which have inspired writes for generations.
Yorkshire coast
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Hide AdThough from the North East, Scarborough is the inspiration and setting for Glenda Young’s cosy crime series – Murder at the Seaview Hotel and Curtain Call at the Seaview Hotel. The third in the series is out later this year.
The books revolve round Helen Dexter, the landlady of the Seaview, and her crime-solving nouse.
The Offing, set in Robin Hood’s Bay, is also by Benjamin Myers and is a coming of age drama.
Perhaps the most famous book set on the Yorkshire Coast is Bram Stoker’s Dracula written in 1897.
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Hide AdThe vampire story is set in Whitby. St Mary’s Church, the 199 Steps and the Abbey all feature in the gothic horror classic. To this day the town makes the most of its associations with the count.
York
The third book in the hugely popular Matthew Shardlake series, Sovereign primarily takes place in York in 1541 during Henry VIII’s state visit to the North.
Shardlake and his assistant Jack Barak are already in the city, as a murder case pulls them into deeper mysteries around the royal family.
It also includes Holme-on-Spalding Moor and the area around the East Riding village.
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Hide AdKate Atkinson’s debut novel Behind the Scenes at the Museum is also set in the city. It is the story of a young girl growing up as part of a middle-class family in York and the generations of women who came before her. The museum in the title refers to York’s Castle Museum.
West Yorkshire
This is Bronte country of course – with Jane Eyre by Charlotte and Wuthering Heights by sister Emily both making the most of the brooding, moody countryside round their Haworth parsonage home.
Children’s book The Railway Children by E Nesbit is also set in Haworth although in both films it is called Oakworth which is nearby.
The Keighley and Worth Valley Railway featured in the films.
Yorkshire Moors
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Hide AdThe Yorkshire moors are the backdrop for Ross Raisin's debut novel God’s Own Country. It s the vivid and darkly unsettling story of Sam Marsdyke, a smart but disturbed teenage farmer who forms a friendship with a young girl who has moved to the area. It’s written from his point of view and in strong Yorkshire dialect, and the sense of menace the bubbles away throughout is compelling.
Goathland, Whitby and Robin Hood’s Bay are the major settings for this novel.
First published in 1911, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett is a children’s classic beloved by generations of readers.
The book tells the story of Mary Lennox, an orphan who is sent to live with her uncle at Misselthwaite Manor on the foreboding Yorkshire Moors and her discovery of the mysterious walled garden that hides within the manor’s grounds.
A film adaptation was filmed in the county.
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Hide AdSetting plays an essential role in all her the histrorical novels of SG Maclean. In the Destroying Angel – one of the Seeker series – she takes the reader deep into the heart of 17th century York, neighbouring villages and the North York Moors.
Hutton-le-Hole and the Lion Inn at Blakey also feature.
The landscape is like her hero – stony, craggy, handsome and, in places, soft at heart as the bogs hidden in the gritty landscape.
Yorkshire Dales
James Herriot’s books about a Yorkshire vet have inspired TV series and a film – including All Creatures Great and Small.
Incidents described in the books mostly occurred in and around Thirsk.
East Riding
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Hide AdThe politics, characters and culture in a Yorkshire village between the wars are explored in South Riding by Winifred Holtby, best known for her friendship with fellow writer Vera Brittain.
Published posthumously in 1936, South Riding is set in a fictional Yorkshire district of the same name.
It references Withernsea as well as many villages surrounding the town.