This year's Cheltenham Literature Festival was the most successful in the event's 68 year history breaking box office records.

More than 134,000 tickets were issued with over 20,000 attending each of the festival weekends, 750 authors on site and 27kg of jelly beans consumed in the Writers Room.

Cheltenham Festivals director Ian George said: "Heading up the Literature Festival for the first time has been an incredible experience. Our new Festival site has been a resounding hit, with festival-goers enjoying the street food, new family areas and more late night events than ever before.

"I'd like to pay tribute to the amazing effort from the programming team to put together a festival with such breadth and depth, ensuring that Cheltenham remains the only place to be each autumn."

In her first UK appearance since the US presidential election, Hillary Clinton gave a revelatory interview with Mariella Frostrup and received a standing ovation from the 2,000-strong festival audience.

Hillary blamed her election loss on sexism saying "The only way we'll get sexism out of politics is to get many more women into politics." Talking about her book, What Happened, Hillary said "I'm not leaving politics ... I have a lot to say. I'll continue to say it. I'm not shutting up and sitting down."

She told her audience that there is no such thing as an alternative fact and that she believes we need to prepare for a global cyber war driven by Russia.

Literary greats at The Times and The Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival included Salman Rushdie, Alan Hollinghurst, Sarah Waters, Ian Rankin, Joanne Harris, Amit Chaudhuri and Roddy Doyle, alongside poets Jackie Kay, Lemn Sissay and Hollie McNish.

National treasures were in abundance. Alan Bennett presented the inaugural David Vaisey Prize to a Gloucestershire library, the audience sang 'Happy Birthday' to Nicolas Parsons who was celebrating his 94th birthday; Mary Berry signed 900 books in two hours and Michael Parkinson closed the festival looking back over his career in conversation with his son Mike.

The festival saw more free family activities than ever before. Illustrator Jim Field took part in five events as well as creating the artwork for the Family programme while Lucy Cousins created a mural with the help of children visiting the festival. Children's Laureate Lauren Child talked about the importance of children having the freedom to discover creativity for themselves.

Cheltenham Literature Festival's popular Lit Crawl returned again this year. Over a thousand people took to the streets, enjoying spoken word, music and comedy in surprising spots around town, with several events proving so popular that people were turned away at the door.

Nigella Lawson revealed her secret to the perfect poached egg - using a tea strainer. Tom Daley revealed his plans to become a TV presenter and Bill Nighy said not enough actors were learning their lines.