We found a book signed by Rosamunde Pilcher tucked away in a charity shop in Wadebridge. It’s called The World of Rosamunde Pilcher. It’s a glossy hardback book packed with photographs of Scotland and the Cornish coast where Rosamunde lived, places which inspired her novels. There are also family photographs from the authors own album and extracts from her books.
Like me, many people in the UK have never have heard of Rosamunde Pilcher. However, in Germany, she is a household name and her novels are well known. A national German TV station called ZDF (Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen) produced over 100 of her stories for TV and they are amongst the most popular programmes on the station. The stories are set in Cornwall at locations including Prideax Place, an Elizabethan Manor in Padstow. There was also a film made of her book The Shell Seekers, the novel of which was on the New York Times bestseller list. This has made Cornwall popular with German holidaymaker’s eager to experience the stunning Cornwall depicted in Rosamunde’s TV programmes for themselves.
Apparently, the films are beautifully shot, for family viewing and always come with a happy ending. They appeal to the German fascination for landscapes and a nostalgic traditional world.
There is even an informal ‘Rosamunde Pilcher trail’ in Cornwall which takes in the places and locations where the Rosamunde Pilcher TV programmes were filmed. These include:
- Lamorna Cove
- Mousehole
- Gwennap Head
- St Ives
- Land’s End
- Bodmin
- Fowey
- Looe
- Polperrow
- Penzance
- St Michael’s Mount
- Prideaux Place
- Mount Edgcumbe
- St Nicholas Chapel
- Tregenna Castle
- Lanhydrock
- Pencarrow House
After selling over 60 million books Rosamunde now lives in Scotland and has retired from writing. This means a book signed by Rosamunde Pilcher is an increasing rarity so we just had to buy it.
If you love books you may well be interested in the North Cornwall Book Festival, details of which can be found here.
