Mark Twain once said, "Every house needs a room to swear in/"

In this sense housing choices can be revealing: they shape a writer and become, even unintentionally, their muse. A direct example of this is Australian writer John Birmingham's odyssey through student share-houses in He Died with a Felafel in His Hand.

It's hard to resist associating the type of house with the style of writer when viewing these photographs of 15 author residences. Estates profiled include Hemingway's magnificent yet simple Florida abode, Gore Vidal's imposing villa, and Nabokov's strangely romantic hilltop mansion.

Mr Twain's house is in there too; his wife designed it, presumably to specifications.

Pictured estates: Ernest Hemingway, Stephen King and Robert Graves. Source.