What is St. Augustine Fiction?

St. Augustine has a rich literary history. For information about authors who have lived in St. Augustine, please visit the St. Augustine Historical Society Research Library. Our agreement with SAHS is that we do not collect in that area, but instead focus on the 270+ works of fiction that have been written about our city (or have scenes in the county).

This guide serves as a finding aid to the genre of St. Augustine Fiction, which is a collecting foci for the Proctor Library. Although a "special collection," not all books are located in Special Collections.

"Books Published in the . . . " are the primary access points. There are tags for the book's genres, time period(s), and geographic location(s) in St. Johns County, which were identified as important information in previous versions of this guide. A map shows the exact or approximate geographic location of the most important local place featured in the book.

Some of the books in this genre are mentioned in guides or bibliographies to Florida literature and can be found listed under "References" when pertinent. If you know of a book that should be included in this guide that is not listed, please email Katherine Owens, Special Collections Librarian (email in the footer).

An interesting note is that the Hotel Ponce de Leon (Flagler College) was a very popular location to write about from the 1880's to the 1910's. Most of these are romances of a happy couple staying at or meeting in the Ponce and are hence "contemporary" fiction of that time period. Most are not examples of great literature, but offer an interesting vignette into the mores of the period.

Thank you to our summer 2014 intern, Lisa Vallen, who put together the first version of this guide.

For help creating this version, thanks are due to: Spring 2022 intern, Nicolette Cisko; 2022 Summer work-study students, Lindsey Williams and Sarah Alexander; 2022 Fall intern, Roscoe Saunders; and 2022 Fall work-study students, Amanda Gattshall and Jean-Marc Augusty.

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Alcazar Hotel

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Governor's House

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Hotel Ponce de Leon

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