Harry Potter
Hogwarts
The novels never name Scotland outright, but Rowling said in an interview that “pretty soon I settled on Scotland, in my mind”. The express from King’s Cross travels north all day.
Europe
United Kingdom
237 authors in the ranking·928 rated books·187 books set here
British authors in the reader ranking include Agatha Christie, George Orwell, J. R. R. Tolkien, Terry Pratchett and J. K. Rowling. Among the books set in the United Kingdom are Rowling’s “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”, first published in 1997, and Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” (1949), in which London belongs to Oceania, one of three totalitarian superstates.
The most-read authors and their best books
Authors 237
- J. K. Rowling12 ranked booksHarry Potter and the Goblet of Fire8.8
- Terry Pratchett59 ranked booksNight Watch8.8
- J. R. R. Tolkien12 ranked booksThe Return of the King9.1
- George Orwell5 ranked booksNineteen Eighty-Four8.5
- Neil Gaiman14 ranked booksThe Sandman: Preludes & Nocturnes8.6
- Agatha Christie63 ranked booksAnd Then There Were None8.4
- Douglas Adams8 ranked booksThe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy8.6
- C. S. Lewis17 ranked booksMere Christianity8.3
- William Shakespeare20 ranked booksMuch Ado About Nothing8.0
- Joe Abercrombie12 ranked booksThe Trouble with Peace8.9
- Jane Austen6 ranked booksPride and Prejudice8.3
- Lee Child29 ranked booksOne Shot8.0
- Roald Dahl14 ranked booksMatilda8.5
- Charles Dickens8 ranked booksA Christmas Carol8.1
- Arthur C. Clarke12 ranked booksRendezvous with Rama8.3
- Arthur Conan Doyle11 ranked booksThe Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes8.2
- Aldous Huxley3 ranked booksBrave New World7.8
- Kazuo Ishiguro6 ranked booksThe Remains of the Day8.4
- Iain Banks13 ranked booksThe Player of Games8.4
- Oscar Wilde6 ranked booksThe Importance of Being Earnest8.2
- William Golding1 ranked bookLord of the Flies7.3
- Philip Pullman8 ranked booksThe Subtle Knife8.2
- H. G. Wells5 ranked booksThe Time Machine7.6
- Matt Haig5 ranked booksA Boy Called Christmas8.1
The story is set here 187
Books whose story is set in this country, according to Wikidata and our own additions.
- Clockwork PrincessCassandra Clare8.6
- Harry Potter and the Order of the PhoenixJ. K. Rowling8.6
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's StoneJ. K. Rowling8.6
- In MemoriamAlice Winn8.5
- Shuggie BainDouglas Stuart8.5
- Nineteen Eighty-FourGeorge Orwell8.5
- And Then There Were NoneAgatha Christie8.4
- Clockwork PrinceCassandra Clare8.4
- 84, Charing Cross RoadHelene Hanff8.4
- Young MungoDouglas Stuart8.4
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of SecretsJ. K. Rowling8.4
- The Pillars of the EarthKen Follett8.4
- Ptolemy's GateJonathan Stroud8.3
- Enemy of GodBernard Cornwell8.3
- Pride and PrejudiceJane Austen8.3
- Animal FarmGeorge Orwell8.3
- Fall of GiantsKen Follett8.3
- World Without EndKen Follett8.3
- The Pale HorsemanBernard Cornwell8.2
- RebeccaDaphne du Maurier8.2
- Winter of the WorldKen Follett8.2
- NeverwhereNeil Gaiman8.2
- BabelR. F. Kuang8.2
- HamnetMaggie O'Farrell8.2
Places from books 14
The Lord of the Rings
Shire
Tolkien wrote that Hobbiton is meant to lie “at about the latitude of Oxford”, and its model was Sarehole near Birmingham, where he grew up. Middle-earth is our own Earth in an imagined antiquity.
Winnie-the-Pooh
Hundred Acre Wood
Five Hundred Acre Wood in Ashdown Forest, East Sussex; Milne’s house stood just north of the forest. The Poohsticks bridge still stands there, rebuilt in 1999.
Thomas Hardy’s Wessex
Casterbridge
Dorchester in Dorset. Hardy’s Wessex is the south and south-west of England under changed names: Abbot’s-Cernel is Cerne Abbas, Budmouth is Weymouth.
A Song of Ice and Fire
Westeros
The Wall was inspired by Hadrian’s Wall, which Martin visited in 1981; the name is said to come from Wester Ross in Scotland, and the south of Westeros is an upside-down Ireland. In the riddle, the United Kingdom counts as the answer.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Narnia
The Mourne Mountains and Rostrevor on Carlingford Lough in Northern Ireland: Lewis is said to have written that this is his idea of Narnia. The name comes from the Italian town of Narni.
Pride and Prejudice
Pemberley
In the novel Pemberley lies in Derbyshire. Chatsworth House is often named as its model, although Austen mentions Chatsworth separately; in the BBC’s 1995 series Pemberley was played by Lyme Park in Cheshire.
George Eliot
Middlemarch
Probably modelled on Coventry, where George Eliot lived as a young woman; the novel is set in a fictional Midlands town just before the Reform Act of 1832.
Elizabeth Gaskell
Cranford
Knutsford in Cheshire, where Elizabeth Gaskell grew up with her aunt.
Harry Potter
Privet Drive
Little Whinging is an invented town in the county of Surrey, south-west of London. The house from the first film stands in Bracknell, Berkshire.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Wonderland
Oxford: the story was born on 4 July 1862 during a boat trip on the Thames with the daughters of the Dean of Christ Church, and Alice Liddell lived at that same college.
Sherlock Holmes
221B Baker Street
The address was fictional: when the stories were published, the numbers in Baker Street did not go as high as 221. Today the Sherlock Holmes Museum has the address 221B.
Jane Eyre
Thornfield Hall
North Lees Hall near Hathersage in Derbyshire is regarded as the model.
Emily Brontë
Wuthering Heights
The setting is linked with Top Withens, a ruined farmhouse on the moors above Haworth, where the Brontë sisters lived, though the building never resembled the house in the novel; High Sunderland Hall near Halifax is regarded as the model for the house itself.
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An author's country is their citizenship in Wikidata or, where none is recorded, the country they were born in; a story's setting comes from Wikidata too. Obvious errors and gaps are corrected by hand. Authors are ordered by the number of reader ratings. Country shapes: Natural Earth.