Fact 1: Exeter Cathedral is home to the Exeter Book, a 10th-century anthology of Anglo-Saxon poetry and riddles and the largest known collection of Old English literature still in existence.

Fact 2: The Devon and Exeter Institution, an independent library located at 7 Cathedral Close, can claim having the earliest known professional woman librarian: Eliza Squance beat 20 male applicants to the job in 1849, though her appointment was conditional on her remaining unmarried.

Fact 3: Allen Lane, the founder of Penguin Books, was inspired to create the paperback imprint while waiting at St David’s train station. Lane was returning from a meeting with Agatha Christie in Devon in 1934 when he found himself at Exeter St David’s with nothing to read. He conceived of paperback editions of literature of proven quality which would be cheap enough to be sold from a vending machine.

Fact 4: The University of Exeter’s Special Collections department hosts the archives of famous writers such as William Golding, Ted Hughes, Charles Causley, Agatha Christie, Daphne du Maurier, and Sir John Betjeman.

Fact 5: Exeter Library received more than half a million visits in 2019, making it one of the busiest buildings in the city and the 18th most visited public library in Great Britain. In the same year, the Library loaned more than a quarter of a million items, the fifth most issues in any public library in Great Britain over that period.

Fact 6: Charles Dickens covered the Exeter City Council elections in 1835. Dickens later rented a cottage for his parents in Alphington and took libation at the Turk’s Head Inn on the High Street.