The initial volume in this four-volume collection of primary sources focuses on how people travelled, and the eighteenth and nineteenth-century guides for travellers and tourists of Britain and Ireland. Covering 1700-1914, this edited volume aimed to combine sources that gave a sense of the scope and kinds of travel in this period, as well as sources that were relatively rare (xiii). Given the continued interest in travel and tourism in the fields of history, anthropology and sociology, Barton and Brodie’s work provides a welcome look at sources that reveal a transition from travel as a “difficult, dangerous and expensive, but also perhaps exotic” pastime to a somewhat more commonplace one (ix). Their materials, and useful introductions, detail the technological advancements that helped make that transformation possible. Yet, they also describe the economic and social changes that made tourism shift from a relatively elite, exclusive practice to something open to many, including working-class people enjoying their increasing amounts of leisure time. As such, it seems a natural extension of Barton’s work on working-class tourism and Brodie’s work on seaside tourism and tourist destinations.Footnote ¹

“Travel”, the first half of the work, focuses on modes of travel, providing at times the impersonal, technical side of travel, from railway fares to driving directions, interspersed with more intimate first-hand accounts. Barton and Brodie describe the maintenance of roads and turnpikes, and the shift in travel writing styles, from personal to impersonal. Sources cover travel by road, water, train, and the new forms of transportation that emerged towards the end of the period covered—bicycles, cars, and airplanes. One particularly interesting source—How to Fly or the Conquest of the Air—compares flying a plane to riding a bicycle in explaining the awareness and equilibrium an operator must maintain. Another, a driving handbook, provides the following delightful dictum to new drivers: “AVOID splashing pedestrians with mud” (214). For those interested in guides on these technical innovations and their everyday applications, this part is no doubt a treasure-trove of detail. For those interested in the social side of travel, an excerpt from A Descriptive Tour in Scotland offers a welcome change of pace, discussing the joys and indignities of travel, noting weary travellers wondering, “but where is the fine scenery?” (83). This same author also discussed the issues that can emerge when different classes had to interact in transit. Another author, H.B. McLellan, describing early rail travel, commented on the porters that gathered near the train, “waiting like trouts under the roots of some tree in the shady stream, for any bait that may float upon the water” (108). McLellan takes this chance to warn readers at some length about the constant need to “remember” all of one’s servants throughout a trip, and the potential duplicity of those servants in seeking tips. Once raised, the issue of social interaction in travel becomes a recurring theme in the sources.

From frustrating encounters with scheming porters to tours of prisons holding all manner of social outsiders, the second half of the work incorporates both the voyeuristic tendencies and the financial difficulties that tourists embraced. Entitled “Destinations”, and organized by those ones which proved most popular, the editors collected materials on London, large cities, the countryside and country houses, Wales, Ireland and Scotland more generally, and ended with a section called “In Search of the Past, Present and Future”. The introductions to the individual sources as well as each section of Part II relate how people began saving schemes to travel, again demonstrating the growing accessibility of travel over the course of the period. This is borne out, not by working-class accounts of travel, but by guides that highlight free and inexpensive excursions. While working-class tourists increasingly had access to tourist destinations, this did not mean that they were welcomed by their more elite fellow tourists. Once again, elite discomfort with social mixing emerges as a theme in the sources. One anonymous author, after initially enjoying visiting with “honest fellows” in tea gardens, later describes visiting Vauxhall. He notes with dismay, “the company are rather disgusting, as they consist chiefly of very low characters, though tolerably well drest” (267). The inhabitants of Wales and Ireland were similarly foreign to English visitors in the eighteenth century, though not always met with the same disgust. Catherine Hutton toured Wales in the 1790s, and came away with a positive impression of the people, noting their dress, diet, and even offering an account of a marriage. Edward Clarke, visiting Ireland in the same period, came away with a far more negative impression, remarking the “exquisite filthiness” of his lodgings, and finding little better in the taverns, awing at the streets “filled with wretchedness and grandeur, idleness and extravagance” (376). Barton and Brodie conclude this volume by bringing together excerpts on visits to the British Museum and to developing factories, formally bringing together themes that have been present throughout the work. They reiterate the travel guide author’s focus on both the historical significance of various locations, and their fascination with new and different modes of travel and ways of life.

Barton and Brodie’s work brings together sources that provide different perspectives on emerging travel and tourism trends from published guides. In incorporating the historical digressions that these sources often wander into, they also show the kinds of stories that British people told themselves about their heritage. While the introductions to the sources often provide useful biographical information about the authors, the historical background would be better left to the general introduction. A lengthier introduction that gave a greater sense of the historical context, the representativeness of these sources, and how they connect to the historiography would help situate this work within it. There are clear connections with decades of work on both the voyeuristic and performative nature of tourism, particularly when elite people visit hospitals, jails, and the general haunts of the lower orders.Footnote ² There are also obvious parallels to works on working-class leisure. Making these connections more apparent in the introduction would help spell out the utility of this otherwise interesting collection.