The Delectable Duchy

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch wrote short stories, novels, and criticism -- and edited anthologies, including the "Oxford Book" series. He was Assistant Editor of the Liberal weekly "The Speaker," and from 1912 until his death was Professor of English at Cambridge University. Writing under the pen name "Q," Quiller-Couch produced a variety of work, including adventure stories, historical fiction, satire, stories of the supernatural, and mysteries.

"The Delectable Duchy" is a collection of stories about the Cornwall area of Britain, inspired by a journalist friend who comes for a visit to learn what Cornwall is like. He has spent a week in Cornwall, and wishes to spend a day with Q learning about his particular area. Q despairs of spinning out the story of "his little nook" for a whole day, and realizes "that my love for this spot is built up of numberless trivialities, of small memories all incommunicable, or ridiculous when communicated; a scrap of local speech heard at this corner, a pleasant native face remembered in that doorway, a battered vessel dropping anchor," and the stories in the collection are the result.