Popular Culture Review 30.2
read a text prior to visiting a literary destination will have the cultural capital to appreciate the literary signs , symbols , and nods to the text experienced during their visit , they garner an added level of enjoyment from their trip . Likewise , upon surveying visitors on a coach tour of Catherine Cookson country in the UK , Pocock ( 241 ) found participants were largely dedicated readers who came prepared to see the aspects of the landscape that confirmed their notions of the writer and her fictional works . Later , Johnson ( 105 ) explored how the widely read novel Ulysses could work as a tourist guide to the city of Dublin and concluded the text provides visitors with a way to engage with and understand the modern city . Echoing the assumption that literature underlies literary place experiences , several scholars assert that upon visiting a location associated with a literary work , visitors cannot help but simultaneously see the landscape through the eyes of the author and the lens of reality ( Pocock 240 ; Westover 12 ). Similarly , Lowe ( 36 ) argued visitors often cannot ( or choose not to ) discern between the real lives and histories of an author and the fictional past an author created . She illustrates this by noting how tourists often come to Hannibal , Missouri ( Mark Twain ’ s hometown ), hoping to see the white picket fence Tom Sawyer painted in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer , associating it with Twain ’ s childhood . Thus , in some cases , fiction may even eclipse reality ( Lowe , 40 ; see also Alexander 108 ). Similarly , upon their examination of Dracula-related tourism in Transylvania , Muresan and Smith ( 83 ) found visitors were looking for a mix of fact and fiction .
Among scholars who theorize about literary tourism , there is a general assumption that visitors to places of literary importance are driven by , or have at least read , the associated text ( s ). A number of scholars contend literary tourists are really just readers who have been left unfulfilled by texts and are
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