Browse Items (5221 total)

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By the second half of the eighteenth century, the grand tour had been so frequently recounted that Boswell and Brydone both sought more remote corners of Italy. Boswell's usual irrepressible enthusiasm and undaunted effrontery secured him the…

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Into its seventh edition, Brice's guide to Paris clearly satisfied its customers, who needed two volumes just to appreciate what one city had to offer. Illustrations were also clearly a stong selling point, indicating that the book was appreciated at…

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Bruce's story remains one of the quintessential African adventure stories, and was eagerly expected by contemporary readers. Bruce took sixteen years to publish his account, by which time Mungo Park and others had brought back further information and…

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This image of Canongate during a royal procession highlights Edinburgh's loyalty to the monarch as well as its impressive modernity. Scotland was no longer the potentially rebellious or poverty-stricken northern neighbour of earlier accounts.

This…

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This small volume provides the practical details needed to navigate the new road systems. Cary's maps, with the colour-coded distinctions among roads, beautifully conveys the intricate networks of communication that increasingly encouraged local…

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Dedicated to the King, this volume displays a reasonably early interest in natural history. Indeed, because Dr. Spon had published his account in French a decade earlier, and because an English bookseller had brought out a translation, Wheler had to…

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The frontispiece to this gorgeous volume captures the adventure associated with the settlement of Australia. Though the documents do not constitute a travel narrative, their connections with the moment of origin provide their intended readers with…

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This somewhat battered little book attests to its apparent usefulness for some traveller, though it is difficult to imagine that the blend of scatalogical and salacious dialogue, 'Common Talke in an Inn', could ever have proved useful in any…

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William Dampier was the most successful English buccaneer, redeeming his reputation as a mercenary adventurer by aspiring to the role of scientific explorer. This world map, drawn by Herman Moll, the premier cartographer of his day, shows the known…

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These two imaginary dialogues raise serious questions about the value of the grand tour. Locke is the more sceptical speaker, and ultimately the more forceful. In refuting the traditional argument that travel exposed one to the various guises of…

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Not only does this pamphlet's content affirm that tourism can be local, but the poem by Thomas Bracken praises our local attractions over a selection of the European highlights.

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As a historian of his birthplace, Migliore celebrates the grandeur of Florence in this elegant guidebook.

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This handbook is included as evidence of other uses to which travel guides may be put. One can easily imagine a character in A Room with a View placing a favourite flower into his or her Baedeker. Someone certainly did so with this volume, though we…

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Gell's detailed study of the architectural discoveries unearthed at Pompei over the course of the eighteenth century provides an example of the strong English interest in topography and archaeology that often informed travel. This particular image…

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A novel by one of the best-known modern travel writers, Hotel Honolulu exploits the tension between fact and fiction in travel accounts. The dust jacket claims that Theroux presents 'the essence of Hawaii as it has never been depicted', combining the…

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The contents of this pamphlet are far less colourful or exotic than its cover. Although twentieth-century readers expect accurate information, we still like to imagine our voyages as adventures.

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Remembered as a translator of Ovid and the Psalms, Sandys was initially a great traveller both to the east and then to the American colonies. This map of Jerusalem is carefully constructed to accompany Sandys's narrative; the reader proceeds in…

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Smollett's collection ranged as widely as possible in all directions, and this account of Laplanders provides a nice comparison with the Webber image above.

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Although Markino's image of Rome is at least as romanticised as anything on display in the beginning of the exhibition, reader expectations have undoubtedly shifted, developing an interest in the 'personal & local', the individual experience that…

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While Boswell's impressive volume is more historical and topographical than Gilpin or Combe, his title reveals the emphasis readers and publishers placed on the 'views'. The 'pleasing effect' of St. Michael's Mount and its 'agreeable' situation with…

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The Michelin man seems slightly thin by comparison with his modern counterpart, but the insistent endorsement of Michelin products is as modern as any web-page advertising. At this date, the guides had not yet adopted the star rating system and did…

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Not to be outdone by Venice, Pisa and Rome, Milan found her own historian in Carlo Torre. This engraving shows one of the oldest surviving Roman colonnades in the city, but does not lavish too much detail on the surroundings, consigning them to a…

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Although Millenium Hall is fictional, the title-page presents it as a domestic tour, and the explicitly 'improving' aim of the work is not out of keeping with other travels of its day. John Newbery, to whom Scott dedicates her book, was the first…

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Sydney Parkinson, botanical draughtsman on Cook's first voyage, died before returning to London, and his papers found their way to the library of Joseph Banks. Parkinson's brother, Stanfield, eventually obtained the papers, after a bitter public…

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Although the tower of Pisa was already leaning by its completion date in 1370, not all seventeenth-century pictures show the slant as clearly as this one. From a family of booksellers, engravers, typographers and cartographers, Pietro Bertelli drew…
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