Literary London

We often stay in the Bloomsbury section of London (the last time in November ’05) and enjoy visiting the sights of “literary London.”

Charles Dickens’ house is easy to find. It’s right there in Bloomsbury and is now the Charles Dickens Museum (48 Doughty St., London, WC1N 2LX, U.K.; phone +44 [0] 20 7405 2127 or visit www.dickensmuseum.com).

From Bloomsbury, take the Golders Green tube or the Hampstead Heath tube and go to Highgate Cemetery, where Karl Marx and Mary Shelley, among other luminaries, are buried. The Spaniards Inn pub (Spaniards Road, Hampstead Heath, London, NW3 7JJ, U.K.; phone +44 [0] 20 8731 6571 or visit www.pubs.com), where John Keats wrote “Ode to a Nightingale,” is just around the corner, and Keats’ home is also nearby. Also in Hampstead Heath are the homes of T.S. Eliot, Lord Byron and D.H. Lawrence.

For Dracula fans, the Golders Green tube stop puts you near St. John’s Parish Church, the count’s “stomping ground.” Dracula author Bram Stoker’s final resting place is in the Golders Green Cemetery.

When in London, we treasure our visits to the Sherlock Holmes Museum (221-B Baker St., London, NW1 6XE, U.K.; phone 0207-935-8866 or visit www.sherlockholmes. co.uk). You may be greeted by Holmes himself (an actor from the Globe theater). Grace Riley and family run the museum.

JOAN BARGAMIN

Richmond, VA