The cover picture is from a painting in the Museum of the Assembly Rooms in 1815. Our Writers Gallery celebrates Lyme's long attraction for writers.

Jane Austen (1775-1817) was one of Lyme's most famous and best-loved visitors. She stayed here with her family in the summer of 1804, and wrote to her sister, Cassandra, of her doings: walking on the Cobb, dancing in the Assembly Rooms, bathing (from a bathing machine) and rather overdoing it, disputing with her landlord the price of a broken jug. Her great novel, Persuasion, published in 1818, is in part set in Lyme, making the town a centre of literary pilgrimage ever since.   John Fowles lived in Lyme, and made the town and its geological setting world-famous in The French Lieutenant's Woman (published in 1969) and the film made from it. He was Hon Curator of the Museum 1978-88..

Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) spent a holiday in Lyme in 1904, and used some views of the town for the book she was working on at the time, Little Pig Robinson.   Henry Fielding (1707-54) got himself into a scrape here in 1725. He tried to run away with Sarah Andrew, the ward of a merchant, Andrew Tucker. His attempt was repulsed: the next day Fielding publicly posted this notice and left town in a hurry. The notice says, 'This is to give notice to all the World that Andrew Tucker and his son John Tucker are Clowns and Cowards. Witness my hand Henry Feilding' (He later settled for spelling his name Fielding.)

Email: info@lymeregismuseum.co.uk	Lyme Regis Philpot Museum - Lyme Regis - DT7 3QA	Tel: 01297 443370