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Case 1: TRAVELS NEAR
Exhibition curator: Katie Sambrook
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| Detail of route from Canterbury to the Isle of Thanet from : Thomas Fisher. The Kentish traveller's companion. Second edition. Canterbury: Simmons and Kirby; Rochester: T. Fisher, 1779. Rare Books Collection DA670.K2F5. |
Thomas Fisher. The Kentish traveller's companion. Second edition. Canterbury: Simmons and Kirby; Rochester: T. Fisher, 1779.
Rare Books Collection DA670.K2F5
A keen antiquarian, Fisher was a printer and bookseller in Rochester and also
served as alderman in that city. This work, which proved successful enough to
reach a fifth edition in 1794, indicates the growing popularity of tourism in
England in the late eighteenth century. Fisher recommends scenically attractive
and historically interesting routes from London to Margate, Dover and Canterbury
and the work is illustrated with a number of folding maps of these routes. Our
copy of the book carries the inscription "Anne Hale, 1809" on the
front fly-leaf; lady travellers formed an important section of the market for
domestic travel guides.
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Anglo-Saxon cross in the churchyard at Bakewell from : William Bray. Sketch of a tour into Derbyshire and Yorkshire. Second edition. London: printed for B. White, 1783. Marsden Collection Add. O2 |
William Bray. Sketch of a tour into Derbyshire and Yorkshire. Second edition. London: printed for B. White, 1783
Marsden Collection Add. O2
That Bray saw this account of a tour of Derbyshire and Yorkshire as filling a notable gap in the market is made clear in the preface:
The writer of the following sketch ... wishes to communicate some part of the pleasure he received in the Tour; and he thinks the traveller will find in it some information that will be useful, and that will enable him to make the most of his time, a circumstance about which the writer found himself much at a loss, for want of direction.
The Peak District was still little visited as a tourist destination in the early 1780s and Bray's work was one of the first guides to the region. While he draws attention to the "beauties of nature in her genuine simplicity" to be found there, his main interest lies in the archaeological and architectural riches of the area. The plate on display shows an Anglo-Saxon cross in the churchyard at Bakewell.
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View of the Thames from : Samuel Ireland. Picturesque views of the River Thames. London: published by T. and J. Egerton, 1792. Rare Books Collection DA670.T2 |
Samuel Ireland. Picturesque views of the River Thames. London: published by T. and J. Egerton, 1792
Rare Books Collection DA670.T2
Ireland, a prolific author and engraver, is best remembered today for the exploits of his son, William Henry Ireland, whose forgery in 1795 of a supposedly hitherto unknown play by Shakespeare, Vortigern and Rowena, deceived many of the leading literary authorities of the day. Samuel Ireland's first work on travel, A picturesque tour of France, Holland, Brabant, and part of France (1790), illustrated with his own aquatint engravings, was instantly popular, although some critics cast doubt on the author's credentials, claiming that he had never travelled outside Britain in his life. Ireland repeated his successful formula throughout the 1790s, producing Picturesque views of the Avon, the Medway, the Inns of Court and the Severn, as well as the work on display, Picturesque views of the River Thames.
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Kirkstall Abbey, Yorkshire from : John Sell Cotman. Etchings. London: published for the author by Messrs. Boydell ... [etc.], 1811. Rare Books Collection FOL. NE2195.C8 |
John Sell Cotman. Etchings. London: published for the author by Messrs. Boydell ... [etc.], 1811
Rare Books Collection FOL. NE2195.C82
Cotman's etching of Kirkstall Abbey, Yorkshire, shown here, perfectly encapsulates the English art of the romantic picturesque: the ruined Gothic building, now covered in ivy, its grounds frequented by grazing cattle, its architectural glories appreciated only by the solitary figure of the sketching artist seen in the bottom right of the picture - all these features were combined to appeal to the romantic sensibilities of the tourist of the picturesque. Cotman, one of the leading members of the Norwich school of landscape painting, held the post of drawing master at King's College London from 1834 until his death in 1842.
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