Browse Items (44 total)
- Collection: Enlarging the prospects of happiness: European travel writing through the ages. Online exhibition
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William Dampier, buccaneer
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…
Wanderings in South America
This book first appeared in 1825, though this edition, with its handsome binding, was printed much later, probably in 1894. Although Waterton's style is clearly dated and, to our ears, rather pompous, his work has been often reprinted even in the…
Venice
Published in Paris, in French, Silvestre's book is the only guidebook in the case clearly intended for a foreign audience. Drawing upon knowledge gained from several trips to Italy, he published engravings of the highlights and thus embarked on a…
Travel advertisements
These advertisements inevitably evoke a longing for the past. As we trundle our luggage through airports, the idea of a servant seems most appealing. While the grandeur of train stations like Dunedin's meant that accommodation nearby was the most…
Topography
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…
Thicknesse's account
Another popular account, Thicknesse proceeds more regularly than Pratt or Sterne, but their influence and elements of the picturesque are evident in the looming hills and the pious or pitiable pilgrims in the foreground. This account exemplifies the…
The Holy Land
This beautiful set of books provides a fascinating visual and textual introduction to the Middle East and North Africa. This image of the Sphinx, with its mellow shadowing and tiny human figures for perspective, conveys the stark awe of Europeans…
The active volcano
As this page vividly illustrates, Vesuvius continued to be quite active after Raymond's visit. Published in Naples for an English audience, this book represents the nineteenth-century traveller's increasingly scientific interests.
Sydney Parkinson, botanical draughtsman
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…
Sydney Opera House
Famous buildings and plazas appear throughout this exhibit, but they usually became tourist attractions only upon completion. This 1965 pamphlet celebrated what the Sydney Opera House hoped to become. Would any reader be interested today if the…
Spiritual guides
Typical of a whole class of spiritual guides to Rome, this little volume lists the holy sights and quantifies the redemptive value of visiting each in terms of indulgences and remission of sins. If one had only a limited time to spend in Rome, such a…
Sotheby's musings
Sotheby's youthful poems eagerly evoke the picturesque, and the engravings added to this second edition only heighten that sensibility. An evocation such as 'Hail, solemn wreck!' (10) does not connote praise, and the beauty of the moonlit ruin proves…
Settlement of Australia
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…
Sandys' journey
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…
Pressed flowers
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…
Pisa
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…
Millenium Hall
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…
Milan
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…
Michelin man
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…
Markino's Rome
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…
Maps of the poles
These two maps show how little was known about Antarctica as late as 1825. Weddell managed to sail just over 200 miles farther south than Cook before fleeing the impending winter, and his record was not bettered until 1911. His book was revised and…
Laplanders
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.
India
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.
Imaginary dialogues
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…
Hotel Honolulu
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…