Personality of place in the urban regional novel

Recent geographical writing on the regional novel has made a cogent case for the recognition of such novels as a valuable tool in geographical analysis. It has tended, however, to emphasise the importance of the rural regional novel and to dismiss the urban. This essay seeks to show by means of a detailed case-study that urban regional novels may also be of value to the geographer. George Blake's The Shipbuilders is used to illustrate ways in which the urban novel can complement and enlarge existing knowledge of a particular place and period.