List of Cornish writers
Encyclopedia
This is a list of writers in English and Cornish who are associated with Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

, United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. Not all of them are native Cornish people
Cornish people
The Cornish are a people associated with Cornwall, a county and Duchy in the south-west of the United Kingdom that is seen in some respects as distinct from England, having more in common with the other Celtic parts of the United Kingdom such as Wales, as well as with other Celtic nations in Europe...

.

Linguist
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

s and writers in Cornish
Cornish language
Cornish is a Brythonic Celtic language and a recognised minority language of the United Kingdom. Along with Welsh and Breton, it is directly descended from the ancient British language spoken throughout much of Britain before the English language came to dominate...

  • Wilfred Bennetto
    Wilfred Bennetto
    Wilfred Melville Bennetto was a Cornish poet and novelist.He was elected a member of Gorseth Kernow under the Bardic name of Abransek in 1968....

    , poet and novelist writing in Cornish
  • John Boson
    John Boson (writer)
    John Boson was a writer in the Cornish language. The son of Nicholas Boson, he was born in Paul, Cornwall. He taught Cornish to William Gwavas. His works in Cornish include an epitaph for the language scholar John Keigwin, and the "Pilchard Curing Rhyme". He also translated parts of the Bible, the...

    , Nicholas Boson
    Nicholas Boson
    Nicholas Boson was a writer in, and preserver of, the Cornish language. He was born in Newlyn to a landowning and merchant family involved in the pilchard fisheries....

    , and Thomas Boson
    Thomas Boson
    Thomas Boson was a writer in the Cornish language and the cousin of Nicholas and John Boson. Thomas helped William Gwavas in his Cornish language research, and wrote an inscription in Cornish for Gwavas's hurling ball. He also made translations of the Ten Commandments, the Apostles' Creed, the...

    , 18th-century writers in the Cornish language
  • Richard Carew, translator and antiquary
  • John Davey
    John Davey
    John Philip Davey , is a former British Olympic swimmer. At the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane, Australia, he won bronze medals in both the 400 m freestyle and 400 m individual medley....

    , of Zennor, last person with any traditional knowledge of Cornish, died 1891: he wrote a few verses in the language
  • Richard Gendall
    Richard Gendall
    Richard Gendall is a British expert on the Cornish language, born in 1924. He is the founder of "Modern Cornish"/Curnoack Nowedga, which split off during the 1980s. Whereas Ken George mainly went to Medieval Cornish as the inspiration for his revival, Gendall went to the last surviving records of...

  • Ken George
    Ken George
    Kenneth J. George, writing as Ken George, is an oceanographer, poet, and linguist noted as being the originator of Kernewek Kemmyn, an orthography for the Cornish language supporters claimed to be more faithful to Middle Cornish phonology than its precursor . Kernewek Kemmyn was introduced in 1987...

  • Haldreyn
    Haldreyn
    Haldreyn is the bardic name of William Morris . He is a Cornish poet, linguist, and painter. Haldreyn was an original member of Kesva an Taves Kernewek and is a bard of the Gorseth Kernow, appointed in 1966.-Selected bibliography:...

     (William Morris), poet
  • Julyan Holmes
    Julyan Holmes
    Julyan Holmes is a Cornish scholar and poet. Born in 1948, Holmes has worked on such topics as Cornish placenames, the Prophecy of Merlin of John of Cornwall, and the writings of the Penwith School....

    , scholar
  • Fred W. P. Jago
    Fred W. P. Jago
    Fred W. P. Jago, , MB, was a scholar best known for his work The Ancient Language and the Dialect of Cornwall, originally published 1882, by Netherton and Worth of Truro. He also published a Cornish dictionary in 1887. He settled at Bodmin in 1843 and practised medicine there.-External links:...

    , linguist and physician
  • Henry Jenner
    Henry Jenner
    Henry Jenner FSA was a British scholar of the Celtic languages, a Cornish cultural activist, and the chief originator of the Cornish language revival....

  • Robert Morton Nance
    Robert Morton Nance
    Robert Morton Nance was a leading authority on the Cornish language, nautical archaeologist, and joint founder of the Old Cornwall Society....

  • Mick Paynter
    Mick Paynter
    Michael Kenneth Paynter is a Cornish civil servant, trade union activist, and poet.Apart from a period of study at the University of Newcastle, his home has always been in Saint Ives ....

    , contemporary poet writing in Cornish
  • Tim Saunders
    Tim Saunders
    Tim Saunders is a Cornish language poet who also writes poetry and journalism in the Welsh, Irish, Breton and Cornish languages. He is resident in Cardiff but is of Cornish descent. He is a bard of the Gorseth Kernow, a literary historian and editor of 'The Wheel' – an anthology of modern poetry in...

    , contemporary poet writing in Cornish
  • William Scawen
    William Scawen
    William Scawen was a one of the pioneers in the revival of the Cornish Language in England. He was a politician who sat in the House of Commons in 1640 and fought for the Royalist cause in the English Civil War....

    , soldier and linguist
  • Tony Snell
    Tony Snell
    Tony Snell is a Cornish waterman, teacher, linguist, singer, and poet. Born in 1938, Snell spent many years teaching at St. Edward's School in Oxford. He became a member of Gorseth Kernow in 1954 under the Bardic name of Gwas Kevardhu...

    , poet and linguist
  • John Tregear

  • Novelists

    • Janie Bolitho, crime writer
    • W. J. Burley
      W. J. Burley
      William John Burley was a British crime writer, best known for his books featuring the detective Charles Wycliffe, who became the basis of the popular Wycliffe television series throughout the mid 1990s....

      , Wycliffe
      Charles Wycliffe
      Detective Superintendent Charles Wycliffe is a fictional detective, created by author W. J. Burley. He is featured in twenty-two novels. ....

       series
    • Myrna Combellack
      Myrna Combellack
      Myrna May Combellackis an academic researcher and writer of the Institute of Cornish Studies , translator of Beunans Meriasek and author of several works of fiction.-Early life:...

      , novelist and scholar
    • Daphne du Maurier
      Daphne du Maurier
      Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning DBE was a British author and playwright.Many of her works have been adapted into films, including the novels Rebecca and Jamaica Inn and the short stories "The Birds" and "Don't Look Now". The first three were directed by Alfred Hitchcock.Her elder sister was...

    • Martin Fido
      Martin Fido
      Martin Austin Fido is a university teacher, true crime writer and broadcaster. His many books include The Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper, The Official Encyclopedia of Scotland Yard, and The Murder Guide to London.After leaving Balliol College, Oxford in 1966 where he had been a...

      . crime writer
    • Patrick Gale
      Patrick Gale
      Patrick Gale is a British novelist who lives in Cornwall.His father was the prison governor of Camp Hill Prison on the Isle of Wight when Gale was born, and he was brought up in and around prisons...

    • Robert Goddard
      Robert Goddard (novelist)
      Robert Francis Goddard is a British novelist.-Life and career:Goddard was educated at Wallisdean County Junior School and Price's Grammar School in Fareham before going on to study history at the University of Cambridge...

    • William Golding
      William Golding
      Sir William Gerald Golding was a British novelist, poet, playwright and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate, best known for his novel Lord of the Flies...

    • Winston Graham
      Winston Graham
      Winston Mawdsley Graham OBE was an English novelist, best known for the The Poldark Novel series of historical fiction.-Biography:...

      , Poldark
      Poldark
      Poldark is a BBC television series based on the novels written by Winston Graham which was first transmitted in the UK between 1975 and 1977.-Outline:...

       series
    • Tim Heald
      Tim Heald
      Tim Heald is a British author, biographer, journalist and public speaker.Heald was born in Dorchester, Dorset, England, and educated at Sherborne School, Dorset and Balliol College, Oxford, receiving an MA in Modern History....

    • Joseph Hocking
      Joseph Hocking
      Joseph Hocking was a Cornish novelist and Methodist minister. He was born at St Stephen-in-Brannel, Cornwall, to James Hocking, part owner of a tin mine, and his wife Elizabeth.In 1884, he was ordained as a minister...

      , author and preacher
    • Silas Hocking
      Silas Hocking
      Silas Kitto Hocking was an Cornish novelist and Methodist preacher. He was born at St Stephen-in-Brannel, Cornwall, to James Hocking, part owner of a tin mine, and his wife Elizabeth. In 1870 he was ordained as a minister...

      , author and preacher
      Preacher
      Preacher is a term for someone who preaches sermons or gives homilies. A preacher is distinct from a theologian by focusing on the communication rather than the development of doctrine. Others see preaching and theology as being intertwined...

    • Alan M. Kent
      Alan M. Kent
      Alan M. Kent is a Cornish poet, novelist, dramatist, author and editor of a number of works on Cornish and Anglo-Cornish literature.-Creative writing:* Proper Job, Charlie Curnow!* Electric Pastyland...

      , poet, novelist and scholar
    • John le Carré
      John le Carré
      David John Moore Cornwell , who writes under the name John le Carré, is an author of espionage novels. During the 1950s and the 1960s, Cornwell worked for MI5 and MI6, and began writing novels under the pseudonym "John le Carré"...

  • Charles Lee
    Charles Lee (author)
    Charles Lee was born in London. He published five novels in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in addition to many short stories and plays about the working people of Cornwall.-Works:*Our Little Town*Paul Carah Cornishman...

    , (1870–1956)
  • Kitty Lee
    Henry Jenner
    Henry Jenner FSA was a British scholar of the Celtic languages, a Cornish cultural activist, and the chief originator of the Cornish language revival....

     (Kitty Lee Jenner, 1854–1936)
  • Herman Cyril McNeile, "Sapper"
    H. C. McNeile
    Cyril McNeile MC was a British author, who published under the pen name Sapper.He was one of the most successful British popular authors of the Interwar period; his principal character was Bulldog Drummond.-Biography:Cyril McNeile was born in 1888 at Bodmin in Cornwall...

    , novelist
  • Jessica Mann
    Jessica Mann
    Jessica Mann is a British writer. As a novelist she specialises in the mystery and suspense genres, having published 20 crime novels since 1971.She has also written several non-fiction books, including Out Of Harm's Way, the story of the overseas evacuation of children during WW2.Mann was educated...

    , crime writer
  • Mark Guy Pearse
    Mark Guy Pearse
    Mark Guy Pearse was a Cornish Methodist preacher, lecturer and author who, during the last quarter of the 19th century and the first of the 20th, was a household name throughout Britain and beyond...

    , author and preacher
  • Rosamunde Pilcher
    Rosamunde Pilcher
    Rosamunde Pilcher OBE is a British author of romance novels and mainstream women's fiction. Early in her career she was also published under the pen name Jane Fraser. Pilcher retired from writing in 2000.-Early years:...

  • Arthur Quiller-Couch
    Arthur Quiller-Couch
    Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch was a Cornish writer, who published under the pen name of Q. He is primarily remembered for the monumental Oxford Book Of English Verse 1250–1900 , and for his literary criticism...

    , novelist and scholar
  • Angie Sage
    Angie Sage
    Angie Sage is the author of the Septimus Heap series which includes Magyk, Flyte, Physik, Queste, Syren, and Darke. She is also the illustrator and/or writer of many children's books, and is the new writer of the Araminta Spook series.Angie Sage grew up in Thames Valley, London and Kent. Her...

    , author and illustrator
  • Howard Spring
    Howard Spring
    Howard Spring was a Welsh author.He began his writing career as a journalist, but from 1934 produced a series of best-selling novels, the most successful of which was Fame is the Spur , which has been both a major film, starring Michael Redgrave, and a BBC television series , starring Tim...

  • Derek Tangye
    Derek Tangye
    Derek Tangye was a well-known author who lived in Cornwall for nearly fifty years. He wrote 19 books which became known as 'The Minack Chronicles'--they were about his simple life on a clifftop daffodil farm called Dorminack, affectionately referred to as Minack, at St Buryan in the far west of...

  • Nigel Tangye
    Nigel Tangye
    -Family:He was the brother of Derek Tangye, and grandson of Richard Tangye. He was married to the actress Ann Todd.-Career:Born in Kensington, Nigel Tangye started his career in the Royal Navy, spending three years in the Mediterranean having graduated at the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth. He...

  • D. M. Thomas
    D. M. Thomas
    Donald Michael Thomas, known as D. M. Thomas , is a Cornish novelist, poet, and translator.Thomas was born in Redruth, Cornwall, UK. He attended Trewirgie Primary School and Redruth Grammar School before graduating with First Class Honours in English from New College, Oxford in 1959...

  • Enys Tregarthen
    Enys Tregarthen
    Nellie Sloggett was an author and folklorist who wrote under the names Enys Tregarthen and Nellie Cornwall.- Life and work :...

    , writer and folklorist
  • John Coulson Tregarthen
    John Coulson Tregarthen
    John Coulson Tregarthen was a British field naturalist and author, described as "the best loved Cornishman of his time"....

    , novelist and naturalist
  • Jack Trelawny
    Jack Trelawny
    Jack Trelawny is a children's fiction writer. He has written a series of six books in the Kernowland series set in an imaginary Cornwall.- Bibliography :Kernowland*2005: The Crystal Pool. Waltham Abbey: Campion Books...

  • Craig Weatherhill
    Craig Weatherhill
    Craig Weatherhill is a Cornish author both of fiction and non-fiction works about Cornwall.-Biography:Raised in St Just in Penwith and then in Falmouth, after serving in the forces he developed a career in conservation and architecture. In his younger days, the 6' 3" Weatherhill was a goalkeeper,...

    , archaeologist, Cornish historian, writer
  • Mary Wesley
    Mary Wesley
    Mary Wesley, CBE was an English novelist. During her career, she was one of Britain's most successful novelists, selling three million copies of her books, including 10 best-sellers in the last 20 years of her life.-Background:...

  • Colin Wilson
    Colin Wilson
    Colin Henry Wilson is a prolific English writer who first came to prominence as a philosopher and novelist. Wilson has since written widely on true crime, mysticism and other topics. He prefers calling his philosophy new existentialism or phenomenological existentialism.- Early biography:Born and...


  • Poet
    Poet
    A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

    s and others

    • Wilfred Bennetto
      Wilfred Bennetto
      Wilfred Melville Bennetto was a Cornish poet and novelist.He was elected a member of Gorseth Kernow under the Bardic name of Abransek in 1968....

      , poet and novelist writing in Cornish
    • John Betjeman
      John Betjeman
      Sir John Betjeman, CBE was an English poet, writer and broadcaster who described himself in Who's Who as a "poet and hack".He was a founding member of the Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture...

      , Poet Laureate
      Poet Laureate
      A poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events...

      , English writer and scholar, frequent visitor to Cornwall and writer on culture
    • Charles Causley
      Charles Causley
      Charles Stanley Causley, CBE, FRSL was a Cornish poet, schoolmaster and writer. His work is noted for its simplicity and directness and for its associations with folklore, especially when linked to his native Cornwall....

      , poet from Launceston
    • Jack Clemo
      Jack Clemo
      Reginald John Clemo was a British poet and writer who was strongly associated both with his native Cornwall and his strong Christian belief. His work was considered to be visionary and inspired by the rugged Cornish landscape...

      , poet
    • Nick Darke
      Nick Darke
      Nick Darke born Nicholas Temperley Watson Darke was best known as playwright but was also a writer, poet, lobster fisherman, environmentalist, beachcomber, politician, broadcaster, film-maker and chairman of St Eval Parish Council.-Life and writings:Nick Darke was born at St Eval, near Padstow in...

      , playwright
    • Samuel Foote
      Samuel Foote
      Samuel Foote was a British dramatist, actor and theatre manager from Cornwall.-Early life:Born into a well-to-do family, Foote was baptized in Truro, Cornwall on 27 January 1720. His father, John Foote, held several public positions, including mayor of Truro, Member of Parliament representing...

      , playwright and actor
    • Caroline Fox
      Caroline Fox
      Caroline Fox was an English diarist. She was the daughter of Robert Were Fox FRS of the influential Fox family of Falmouth, and was the younger sister of both Barclay Fox, also a diarist, and Anna Maria Fox....

      , diarist
  • W. S. Graham
    W. S. Graham
    William Sydney Graham was a Scottish poet who is often associated with Dylan Thomas and the neo-romantic group of poets. Graham's poetry was mostly overlooked in his lifetime but, partly due to the support of Harold Pinter, his work has enjoyed a revival in recent years...

    , Scottish poet
  • Geoffrey Grigson
    Geoffrey Grigson
    Geoffrey Edward Harvey Grigson was a British writer. He was born in Pelynt, a village near Looe in Cornwall.-Life:...

    , poet and prose writer
  • Thomas Hardy
    Thomas Hardy
    Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...

    , English novelist and poet, met his wife Emma Gifford, while he was working at St Juliot
    St Juliot
    St Juliot is a civil parish in north-east Cornwall, United Kingdom. The parish is entirely rural and the only settlements are the hamlets of Beeny and Tresparrett.-Parish Church:...

     church, near Boscastle
    Boscastle
    Boscastle is a village and fishing port on the north coast of Cornwall, England, in the civil parish of Forrabury and Minster. It is situated 14 miles south of Bude and 5 miles north-east of Tintagel....

     (some of his poems are about events in Cornwall)
  • John Harris
    John Harris (poet)
    John Harris was a Cornish poet.Harris was born and raised in a two-bedroom cottage on the slopes of Bolenowe Carn, a small village near Camborne, Cornwall, in the United Kingdom...

    , miner and poet
  • Les Merton
    Les Merton
    Les Merton is a Cornish writer from Medlyn Moor, Cornwall, England, UK, now living in Redruth. Educated at Halwin School, and employed in various ways, he writes in a range of genres including humour and Cornish dialect....

    , varying styles, including dialect
    Anglo-Cornish
    Anglo-Cornish is a dialect of English spoken in Cornwall by Cornish people. Dialectal English spoken in Cornwall is to some extent influenced by Cornish grammar, and often includes words derived from the Cornish language...

     poetry; also a publisher
  • Peter Mundy
    Peter Mundy
    -Life:He came from Penryn in Cornwall. In 1609 he accompanied his father to Rouen, and was then sent to Gascony to learn French. In May 1611 he went as a cabin-boy in a merchant ship, and gradually rose in life until he became of independent circumstances....

    , traveller from Penryn
  • Mick Paynter
    Mick Paynter
    Michael Kenneth Paynter is a Cornish civil servant, trade union activist, and poet.Apart from a period of study at the University of Newcastle, his home has always been in Saint Ives ....

    , contemporary poet writing in Cornish
  • A. L. Rowse
    A. L. Rowse
    Alfred Leslie Rowse, CH, FBA , known professionally as A. L. Rowse and to friends and family as Leslie, was a British historian from Cornwall. He is perhaps best known for his work on Elizabethan England and his poetry about Cornwall. He was also a Shakespearean scholar and biographer...

    , historian, poet and scholar
  • Tim Saunders
    Tim Saunders
    Tim Saunders is a Cornish language poet who also writes poetry and journalism in the Welsh, Irish, Breton and Cornish languages. He is resident in Cardiff but is of Cornish descent. He is a bard of the Gorseth Kernow, a literary historian and editor of 'The Wheel' – an anthology of modern poetry in...

    , contemporary poet writing in Cornish
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