You know that specific feeling when you’re reading a story and the wind starts howling through the pages? That’s the magic of books on the moors. It is a very particular vibe. It’s not just "the countryside." It’s something older, messier, and significantly more dangerous.
The moors aren’t like a manicured park. They’re basically massive, sprawling uplands—mostly in Northern England—covered in heather, gorse, and peat bogs that can literally swallow a person whole if they step off the path. It’s no wonder writers have been obsessed with them for centuries. When you put a character on a moor, you’re basically saying they are at the mercy of the elements. Nature doesn’t care about your problems.
The Brontës and the Birth of the Moorland Obsession
We have to talk about the Brontës. Seriously. You can’t discuss books on the moors without starting in Haworth. Emily, Charlotte, and Anne lived right on the edge of the Pennines, and those landscapes seeped into their bones.
Take Wuthering Heights. It’s arguably the most famous example of this genre. Emily Brontë didn't just use the moors as a backdrop; she used them as a character. The house itself, Wuthering Heights, is named after the "wuthering" wind that blows across the heights. Cathy and Heathcliff are basically human embodiments of the heather and the stone. When Cathy says, "I am Heathcliff," she’s also saying she is the moor. It’s wild, it’s chaotic, and it refuses to be tamed by Victorian society.
Honestly, if you go to the Brontë Parsonage Museum today, you can walk out the back door and be on the moors in minutes. It’s easy to see why they wrote the way they did. The landscape is beautiful but also kinda terrifying. One minute the sun is out, and the next, a thick fog—a "sea fret"—rolls in and you can’t see your own hand.
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Why Jane Eyre Feels Different
Then you’ve got Jane Eyre. Charlotte Brontë uses the moors differently. For Jane, the moors represent a sort of purgatory. When she flees Thornfield and ends up wandering the heath, she’s starving and alone. The moor is a place of testing. It’s where she has to decide who she is when everything else is stripped away. It’s bleak. It’s lonely. But it’s also where she finds her independence.
The Hound and the Horror of the Mire
Shift gears for a second. Think about Arthur Conan Doyle. The Hound of the Baskervilles is probably the best mystery ever written, and it works because of Dartmoor.
Dartmoor is in Devon, in the South West of England. It’s different from the Yorkshire moors. It’s got these massive granite outcrops called "tors." Doyle spent time at the Duchy Hotel in Princetown while researching the book. He was fascinated by the idea of the Great Grimpen Mire—a fictionalized version of Fox Tor Mires.
The mire is the ultimate moorland trope. It’s a literal death trap. You look at a patch of bright green grass and think it’s safe, but it’s actually liquid mud that will pull you under. Doyle uses this to create a sense of constant, underlying dread. Sherlock Holmes is a man of logic, but even he seems a bit rattled by the vast, prehistoric emptiness of the moor at night.
Modern Takes: It’s Not All Corsets and Carriage Rides
People sometimes think books on the moors are just for people who like "classic" literature. That’s totally wrong. Modern authors are still using this landscape to creep us out or make us feel things.
Take The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley. While technically set on a desolate stretch of the Lancashire coast (the Morecambe Bay area), it captures that exact same "moorland" energy of isolation and ancient, dark secrets. It’s about a landscape that is constantly shifting and hiding things.
Or look at the crime fiction world. Ann Cleeves, who wrote the Shetland and Vera series, is a master of this. Her Vera Stanhope novels are set in Northumberland. The moors there are huge and empty. When a body is found in the heather, it feels like the land itself is giving up a secret it’s been holding for decades.
Why We Can’t Quit This Landscape
What is it about this specific geography?
- Isolation. You’re away from the city. No one can hear you scream. Classic trope, but it works.
- The Weather. It’s a physical force. In moorland books, the rain doesn't just fall; it lashes. The wind doesn't blow; it screams.
- The History. These places are full of Bronze Age ruins, standing stones, and abandoned mines. You’re always walking on top of history.
- The Scale. The moors make humans look small. That’s a great way to explore big themes like fate, God, or the insignificance of social class.
The Misconception of "Empty" Space
A lot of people get this wrong. They think the moors are "empty." They aren't. They are ecosystems teeming with life—curlews, adders, red grouse. But in literature, they represent a vacuum where the "civilized" rules of society don't apply.
In The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, the moor is initially seen as a "dark, hopeless place" by Mary Lennox. But as she gets healthy, she realizes the moor is full of life. It’s a place of healing. It’s "the big, wide, blue-sky place." This is a rare take, but it’s an important one. The moor isn't always a villain. Sometimes it’s a mirror. If you’re miserable, the moor looks like a graveyard. If you’re waking up to the world, it looks like paradise.
How to Find Your Next Moorland Read
If you’re looking to dive into this subgenre, don't just stick to the hits.
Check out Cider with Rosie author Laurie Lee’s less-famous contemporaries, or look into the "folk horror" revival happening in British publishing right now. Authors like Daisy Johnson (Everything Under) are playing with these landscapes in ways that feel fresh and weird.
If you want something gritty, read Benjamin Myers. The Gallows Pole is a brutal, muddy, brilliant look at the Cragg Vale Coiners in the Yorkshire moors during the 18th century. It’s based on a true story. It’s about men who felt the law didn't reach into the hills, so they made their own. It’s far from the romanticized versions of the moors you might see on a postcard. It’s dirt, blood, and cold stone.
Real-World Moorland Essentials
If you actually want to visit the places that inspired these books on the moors, there are a few spots you can’t miss.
- Top Withens: This is the ruined farmhouse near Haworth that supposedly inspired the location of Wuthering Heights. It’s a long walk, and it’s usually windy enough to knock you over, but the view is incredible.
- Princetown: Located in the heart of Dartmoor. It’s home to Dartmoor Prison (which features in The Hound of the Baskervilles). It’s a bleak, grey town that perfectly captures the vibe of the book.
- The North York Moors National Park: Great for seeing the purple heather in late summer, which looks beautiful but hides some of the most treacherous bogs in the UK.
Actionable Insights for Your Reading List
Don't just read the classics and stop there. To really understand how this landscape functions in fiction, you should compare how different eras treat the same ground.
Step 1: Start with the Foundations.
Read Wuthering Heights. Even if you’ve seen the movies, the book is much more violent and "unhinged" than the films suggest. Pay attention to how the characters' moods shift when they move from the valley (Thrushcross Grange) up to the heights.
Step 2: Contrast with Mystery.
Pick up The Hound of the Baskervilles. Notice how Doyle uses the moor to create a sense of "prehistoric" danger. He treats the landscape like a laboratory for fear.
Step 3: Go Modern.
Read The Gallows Pole by Benjamin Myers. This will strip away any lingering "pretty" thoughts you have about the Yorkshire landscape. It’s a masterclass in nature writing that feels like a punch in the gut.
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Step 4: Visit (Virtually or Literally).
Use Google Earth to look at the "tops" around Haworth or the tors of Dartmoor. Seeing the actual scale of these places makes you realize why a 19th-century writer would think of them as an infinite wilderness.
The moors are one of the few places left in the UK that feel truly wild. As long as they exist, writers will keep sending their characters out into the heather to get lost, get found, or go a little bit mad. It’s a setting that never gets old because the land itself feels so ancient.
To expand your collection, look for "Topography" or "Regional Fiction" sections in independent bookstores in Northern England. They often carry small-press titles that focus on specific moorland legends—like the "Hand of Glory" or the "Black Shuck"—that haven't made it into mainstream global bestsellers yet. These local myths are the secret DNA of almost all moorland literature.