Edinburgh is a city renowned for its rich history, gorgeous buildings, iconic ghost tours, and unique Scottish cuisine – for better or for worse. (I am vegetarian, so whilst I appreciate that many people love haggis, I would rather try to camp on Arthur’s Seat in November).
So buckle up and use this article as your tour guide to embark upon…The Perfect Literature Tour of Edinburgh.
We start our journey in New Town, specifically at Young Street’s Oxford Bar, where the protagonist of Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus novels is often found. It might be an idea to pause and get a pint or two here, as we’re in for a long trip.
After a pleasant stroll through the Queen Street Gardens, you’ll find yourself on Heriot Row, where Robert Louis Stevenson lived: the prolific writer who, in 1887, founded this very paper.
Continuing up Abercromby Place and Albany Street, you’ll reach the first climb of our tour: Calton Hill. Now, you may choose to simply observe it from a distance. However, it is supposedly Calton Hill (alongside the Mound) which inspired Stevenson’s ideas on the duality of man depicted in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde as it forms the dividing line between Old Town and New Town. I wouldn’t want to miss the chance to understand some of his genius.
The next stop on our tour is none other than Arthur’s Seat. Unlike the many students up there fulfilling the myth that failure to climb Arthur’s Seat in Freshers’ Week leads to poor sex and poor grades, you will instead be there for the demonic landscapes and conflicts of James Hogg’s The Confessions of a Justified Sinner.
On the way back down Arthur’s Seat, our tour will take you past Pollock Halls. Keep walking. Nothing of literary importance has ever happened there. We have quite a walk until we get to our next stop, so take a leisurely stroll down Sciennes Road. Turn left down Arden Street, where the same protagonist who frequented the Oxford Bar lived.
Hopping forward a couple of streets, you’ll wander past James Gillespie’s High School for Girls: Dame Muriel Spark’s rumoured inspiration for the school in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Additionally, if you carry on down the edge of the Links and along Bruntsfield Place, you’ll see where Spark grew up.
Another long walk until our next stop on this (admittedly exhausting) tour, but this time it’s through the Meadows with considerably pretty views and attractive flats. Just past the Middle Meadow Walk, turn left into George Square and continue onwards, keeping an eye out for the little sign on the left pointing out the building where Arthur Conan Doyle used to live.
In Bristo Square, take a moment to admire the grandiose McEwan Hall, the graduation spot of many of this tour’s writers, and then proceed down Lauriston Place and past George Heriot’s School, J.K. Rowling’s (alleged) inspiration for Hogwarts.
A right turn down Heriot Place will bring you into Grassmarket – another of the settings in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – which you will follow down and around Victoria Street. This takes you past two key literary locations: the Royal Mile, featured in Sir Walter Scott’s The Heart of Mid-Lothian and Parliament Square (Ian Rankin’s A Good Hanging). This should lead you to East Princes Street Gardens.
The tour is now near its end, so take a moment to appreciate one of Edinburgh’s finest views. The Scott Monument, of course! (Not the castle…)
The monument memorialises Sir Walter Scott, whose Waverley novels also gave their name to Edinburgh Waverley Train Station. The station is just opposite the monument and hosts a Pret à Manger with delicious toasties if you see fit to celebrate the end of The Perfect Literary Tour of Edinburgh.
Of course, if you’re on your way out of Edinburgh, there is one last stop: the Sir Walter Scott Weatherspoon’s at the airport. But if you are lucky enough to call UNESCO’s first City of Literature your home, try and get a bus back to your flat because, by this point, you’ll be wind-swept, freezing, and probably drenched.
Image “Scott Monument” by Malingering is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.