Discovering Britain and Ireland in the Romantic period : grand tours / edited by James Watt, Alison O'Byrne.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Watt, James, editor, contributor.

O'Byrne, Alison, editor, contributor.

Series:

Cambridge studies in Romanticism

Cambridge studies in romanticism

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Great Britain--Description and travel.

Great Britain.

Ireland--Description and travel.

Ireland.

Romanticism--Influence.

Romanticism.

Physical Description:

xiv, 269 pages : illustrations, portraits ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2025.

Summary:

Even as members of the social elite participated in the European Grand Tour, travellers, writers, and readers increasingly recognized that Britain and Ireland might offer sights and experiences to rival the continent. This collection examines the practice and representation of tourism on 'home' ground during the period when modern Britain was invented and became a powerful and prosperous imperial nation. Interdisciplinary essays explore the diverse variety of tours and tourist agendas--artistic, industrial, leisure, scientific--and they address the ways in which travellers' 'discovery' of Britain and Ireland was an active and often self-critical process that potentially encompassed encounters with the alien and unfamiliar. Considering travellers from the wider world, as well as from within Britain and Ireland, contributors discuss the function of comparative reference in contemporary travel writing, as tourists often thought with and through others as they reflected on the distinctiveness and significance of the sites that they visited.

Contents:

Introduction / James Watt and Alison O'Byrne

Discovering Britain and Ireland: Goldsmith's grand tours / James Watt

Frances Burney at the seaside / Harriet Guest

Moving pictures: Thomas Sandby in the East Midlands and Yorkshire / John Bonehill

Watercolour, extreme weather, electricity: Cornelius Varley in North Wales 1802-1805 / Elizabeth Edwards

'Another view of Ireland': tourism and war on the 'Irish Road' in 1790s Wales / Mary-Ann Constantine

'A scene of terror, tumult, and confusion': Irish gothic tourism / Jim Kelly

Experimental tourism: aesthetics, science, and world history in the Highlands of Scotland / Ian Duncan

'Such classic ground': women and the Romantic-era Scottish tour / Pam Perkins

'Manchester is, as it were, the heart of this vast system': two northern industrial tours of the 1790s / Jon Mee

'Diffusive opulence': foreign travellers' views of romantic London / Alison O'Byrne

Metropolitan thresholds: Abu Talib, Juliette Récamier, and touristic worldmaking / Daniel O'Quinn.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 244-258) and index.

ISBN:

9781108842693

1108842690

OCLC:

1458614199