Travel Writing 1700-1830 An Anthology

561 Pages·2005·1.65 MB·English

by  Elizabeth A Bohls

oxford world’s classics
TRAVEL WRITING, 1700–1830
During the eighteenth century British travellers fanned out to
every corner of the world, driven by diverse motives: scientific curi-
osity, exploration, colonization, trade, diplomacy, and tourism,
which began to flourish during this period. Those at home read
voraciously in travel literature, which informed curious Britons
about their nation’s activities overseas. The Empire, already estab-
lished in the Caribbean and North America, was expanding in India
and Africa and founding new outposts in the Pacific. Readers also
enjoyed reports of travel closer to home: tours of the Continent and
the British Isles themselves, whose beauty spots fuelled the rising
fashion for picturesque and sublime scenery. Travel writing fed
readers’ desire for adventure and exoticism and reinforced their pride
in their nation’s achievements. It addressed scientific questions and
gave philosophers food for thought. Political controversies were
fought out in travel books, including the slavery question and the
French Revolution debate. Above all, travellers’ descriptions of the
wider world reveal their perception of themselves. Selected authors
include Daniel Defoe, Joseph Addison, Mary Wortley Montagu,
Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, James Cook, William Bartram,
Mary Wollstonecraft, Dorothy Wordsworth, Walter Scott, Olaudah
Equiano, Mungo Park, Ann Radcliffe, Matthew ‘Monk’ Lewis, and
Frances Trollope.
Elizabeth A. Bohls is Associate Professor of English at the
University of Oregon. She is the author of Women Travel Writers
and the Language of Aesthetics, 1716–1818, recently translated into
Japanese, and of articles on travel writing and the novel. She is
currently finishing a book on identity and place in writings from the
colonial British Caribbean.
Ian Duncan is Professor of English at the University of California,
Berkeley. He has edited several works of fiction for Oxford World’s
Classics, including Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe and Rob Roy. He is
completing a book called Scott’s Shadow: The Novel in Romantic
Edinburgh (Princeton University Press).
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OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS
Travel Writing
1700 1830
–
An Anthology
Edited by
ELIZABETH A. BOHLS and IAN DUNCAN
With an Introduction by
ELIZABETH A. BOHLS
1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp
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Selection and editorial matter © Elizabeth Bohls and Ian Duncan 2005
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ISBN 0–19–284051–7 978–0–19–284051–6
1
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The editors thank their research assistants, Keiko Kagawa and Nick
Nace, whose hard work, resourcefulness, and acuity helped bring
this project to completion. Gordon Sayre provided invaluable advice
about eighteenth-century North American travellers. We are grate-
ful to the staff of the University of Oregon English Department,
especially Marilyn Reid and Sheryl Powell, and to staff at the Knight
Library at the University of Oregon, the Bancroft and Doe Libraries
at the University of California, Berkeley, and the National Library of
Scotland. Financial assistance was provided by the Barbara and
Carlisle Moore endowment at the Department of English, University
of Oregon, and the Committee on Research of the Academic Senate
of the University of California, Berkeley. Thanks are due to Gordon
Turnbull, General Editor, and the Editorial Committee of the Yale
Editions of the Private Papers of James Boswell, for permission to
reproduce selections from Boswell’s Scottish and Grand Tour jour-
nals; to Alice Wilson, at David Higham Associates, and the Hakluyt
Society for permission to reprint selections from J. C. Beaglehole’s
edition of the journals of Captain Cook; to Richard Price and Sally
Price for permission to reprint selections from their edition of John
Stedman’s Narrative; and to the Champlain Society for permission
to reprint a passage from the 1962 edition of David Thompson’s
Narrative. Ian Duncan thanks Ay¸se Agis¸ for her encouragement and
support. Liz Bohls thanks her family (Chris, Natalie, and Cooper
Doe) for their great forbearance, and her parents, Mary and Allen
Bohls, for starting her travels early. Last, but far from least, we both
thank Judith Luna, at Oxford World’s Classics, for her apparently
inexhaustible good humour and patience.
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CONTENTS
Introduction xiii
Note on the Texts xxviii
Select Bibliography xxx
Chronology xxxvi
TRAVEL WRITING
PART I. EUROPE AND ASIA MINOR
1. CLASSICAL GROUND
joseph addison,Remarks on Several Parts of Italy (1705) 5
john galt,Letters from the Levant (1813) 11
2. DEBATING THE TOUR
The Gentleman’s Magazine: ‘Of Travelling’ (1731) 13
thomas nugent,The Grand Tour (1756) 14
richard hurd,Dialogues on the Uses of Foreign
Travel (1775) 18
3. SOCIETY AND SENTIMENT
james boswell,Boswell on the Grand Tour: Germany and
Switzerland (1764) 20
tobias smollett,Travels through France and Italy (1766) 29
john moore,A View of Society and Manners in Italy (1781) 32
hester lynch piozzi,Observations in a Journey through
Italy (1789) 36
4. REVOLUTIONARY TOURISM
arthur young,Travels, during the Years 1787,1788
and1789 (1792) 40
viii Contents
helen maria williams,Letters from France
(1790–1796) 48
ann radcliffe,A Journey made in the Summer of
1794 (1795) 57
charlotte anne eaton,Narrative of a Residence in
Belgium (1817) 60
walter scott,Paul’s Letters to his Kinsfolk (1816) 65
5. OFF THE BEATEN TRACK
lady mary wortley montagu,‘Embassy Letters’
(1716–1718) 68
lady elizabeth craven,A Journey through the Crimea
to Constantinople (1789) 77
mary wollstonecraft,Letters Written during a Short
Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (1796) 82
PART II. THE BRITISH ISLES
1. THE STATE OF THE NATION
celia fiennes,The Diary of Celia Fiennes
(c.1685–1703) 97
daniel defoe,A Tour through the Whole Island of Great
Britain (1724–1726) 105
arthur young,A Tour in Ireland (1780) 116
john carr,The Stranger in Ireland (1806) 122
william cobbett,Rural Rides in the Southern, Western
and Eastern Counties of England (1822–1826) 126
2. PICTURESQUE TOURISM
thomas gray,Journal in the Lakes (1769) 129
thomas west,A Guide to the Lakes (1784) 132
william gilpin,Observations on the River Wye (1782) 137
ann radcliffe,Observations during a Tour in the
Lakes (1795) 140
Contents ix
3. SCOTLAND
martin martin,A Voyage to St Kilda (1698) 141
samuel johnson,A Journey to the Western Islands of
Scotland (1775);james boswell,The Journal of a
Tour to the Hebrides (1773) 149
mary ann hanway,A Journey to the Highlands of Scotland
(1777) 163
dorothy wordsworth,Recollections of a Tour Made in
Scotland (1803) 167
james hogg,‘Malise’s Journey to the Trossacks’ (from
The Spy,1811) 177
PART III. AFRICA
1. THE SLAVE TRADE, 1732–1789
john barbot,A Description of the Coasts of North and
South Guinea (1732) 182
john atkins,A Voyage to Guinea, Brasil and the West-Indies
(1735) 186
john newton,Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade (1788) 191
olaudah equiano,The Interesting Narrative of the Life of
Olaudah Equiano (1789) 196
2. INFANT COLONY, 1794
anna maria falconbridge,Two Voyages to Sierra
Leone (1793) 206
3. EXPLORERS, 1790–1822
james bruce,Travels into Abyssinia, to Discover the Source
of the Nile (1790) 220
mungo park,Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa (1799) 227
john barrow,Travels into the Interior of Southern
Africa (1801) 237
james k. tuckey,Narrative of an Expedition to Explore
the River Zaire (1818) 244