Customer Reviews

The Polite Tourist: Four Centuries of Country House Visiting

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Tourism in Britain started with pilgrims seeking out the tomb of Thomas ? Becket at Canterbury, expanded with a renaissance of topographers and antiquarians poking into odd corners of the country, and broadened again with the arrival of foreign visitors in London on the Continental Grand Tour. But the heart of this lovely book is the practice in the 18th and 19th centuries by owners of stately homes of allowing visitors to inspect the premises when they (the owners) were not in residence. (Think Elizabeth Bennett's first encounter with Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice.) The Victorians also loved mysterious and romantic locations like Stonehenge and the Roman baths at Bath, and they loved to listen to (and frequently accept uncritically) the bizarre legends associated with them. (No, Julius Caesar did not build the White Tower!) Like all books I've read that were published by the National Trust (without which most of these tax-heavy properties would probably have been torn down decades ago), half the enjoyment is in the hundred-plus illustrations and the seventy color plates. A beautifully produced addition to English social history.

Although I'd been intrigued by the description of Elizabeth Bennett and the Gardner's visit to Pemberley in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (but no, it certainly isn't Lizzie's first encounter with Darcy!), and another favorite book, Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, contains several references to public visitors at Manderly, I nevertheless persisted in thinking of it as a modern phenomenon, something that only occurred since the homes ceased to be private homes and instead became National Trust properties; my perception has been admirably changed once and for all thanks to this book. It is as the other reviewer notes a beautiful National Trust publication but also has a great deal of well researched historical information on the subject of country house tourism. The author covers Gilpin-style "picturesque" tourism well, which I was very interested in. The illustrations are sublime - period paintings, watercolors, and modern photos - of particular note is a c.1805 watercolor of visitors picnicking near Stowe, overlooking the Temple of the British Worthies, then later in the book, a photo of the temple today - fascinating. I also now understand why so many country houses in Britain can boast "Elizabeth [I - the Queen, not Bennett!] slept here." The book is quite a bargain here. I found it to be a good companion to Mavis Batey's Jane Austen and the English Landscape, which I got around the same time.