Dan Stevens, the London-born actor who became a household name (and face) when he played Lady Mary’s love Matthew Crawley in Downton Abbey, currently stars as the author Charles Dickens in The Man Who Invented Christmas, now in theaters. It is another of Dickens’s works that appears on Stevens’s desert island reading list, but there is no doubt he has taken inspiration from the characters he plays, and joy from his many endeavors. As he told the Telegraph in 2016, “As long as I am given the opportunity to keep performing and keep exploring in whatever medium, I’ll be happy. As long as I get to spend time with my family, I’ll be happy. As long as I can write in some form, I’ll be happy. It is the essential things like that I equate with happiness.”

Below are Dan Stevens’s favorite books, available to purchase individually or as a set.