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Christina Hardyment is a writer and journalist with a special interest in literary geography and domestic history. She is the author of Writing the Thames (Bodleian Library Publishing, 2016).
'In this collection of 20 sparkling mini-essays, Christina Hardyment sets out to show how bricks and mortar make compelling fictional characters just as surely as skin and bone. Skilfully deploying biography, close reading and psychogeography, Hardyment creates a series of charming house portraits, starting with Horace Walpole's gothic castle of Otranto (1764) and winding up with the equally crenellated Hogwarts, courtesy of JK Rowling (1997-2007).' * The Guardian * 'Novel Houses is a lively literary gazetteer to great imaginative homes…If you like nuggets about niches and gleanings about gables, you'll love this book.' * The Times * 'An enjoyable and nicely weighted tour of legendary buildings from English and American fiction, with Hardyment as a knowledgeable and (thankfully) unstuffy guide.' * Irish Times * 'This is a delightful, varied and perceptive book, full of insights that entice one to read or re-read the novels. It opens a fresh way of looking at fiction and sends one back to other titles one loves where houses are characters alongside people.' * Church Times *
