The British Abroad

Travel for pleasure developed greatly in the 18th century, and here Jeremy Black examines travel on the Continent, the so-called "Grand Tour". He considers not only the standard destinations of France and Italy, but also the Low Countries, Germany, Switzerland and the Balkans. The modes of transport are described in detail, along with the range of accommodation, the food and drink, the pleasures and the hazards of travel, ranging from sex and sensibility to debt and dysentery, as well as the effects of the French Revolution on the British tourist. Jeremy Black includes extensive quotations from eighteenth-century tourist correspondence, including neglected manuscript collections, to build up a vivid and frequently amusing picture of travel experiences of British aristocrats on the continent.