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Travel diary detailing four tours of Europe and Great Britain
Creator
Title
Travel diary detailing four tours of Europe and Great Britain, 1861-1864.
Physical Description
1 v. (268 p.) ; 19 x 12 cm.
Language
English
Notes
Pasted in: newspaper cutting consisting of a letter captioned "Things as they are in America. Fourth letter from Mr. W. L. Carpenter. To the Editor of the Mercury and Post", signed W. L. Carpenter and dated Wednesday, July 9th, describing a visit to Thomas Edison's workshop at Menlo-park.
Bookseller's label of James W. Arrowsmith, printer & stationer, 11 Quay Street, Bristol with ms inscription "Mr. J. Worsley 8 Gloster Road Clifton".
Binding: contemporary quarter black morocco-style with marbled paper covers and end-papers.
Provenance
Purchased from Patrick King Rare Books on the James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection Fund, 2006.
Biographical / Historical Note
John Worsley, barrister, antiquary and traveler, was a native of Clifton and had law chambers in Bristol. He was called to the Bar in 1847, and was in practice until at least 1885.
Summary
Holograph diary of 4 tours of Europe and Great Britain between 1861 and 1864. The first and most extensively described tour records a 6 week journey in the autumn of 1861 through Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, the Rhineland, Bavaria, Upper Austria and the Salzkammergut, returning via the Black Forest, Switzerland and Northern France. The architectural and antiquarian high spots of the towns and cities visited, particularly Nuremberg, Regensburg, Munich and Augsburg, are described at length. The treasures in the Munich Pinakothek are very fully described and a detailed plan of the galleries is included. The description of a Romanesque chapel in Regensburg is also accompanied by a pasted in ink sketch. The description of Salzburg includes some mention of Mozart. The journey through the Salzkammergut included visits to several salt mines.
The second tour took place in the autumn of 1862, beginning in Jersey, where Worsley took an omnibus tour of the island and visited the Naval School of Instruction in the Rigging of Ships. He then sailed to St. Malo and spent the next five weeks touring Brittany, Anjou, Touraine, Berry and the Auvergne, visiting Dinan (where he was amused by an itinerant ventriloquist and visited the local Lunatic Asylum), Rennes, Nantes (where he gives a shocked account of the "noyades" or executions by drowning during the Revolutionary period), the standing stones at Carnac, the castles of Plessiz-les-Tours, Blois and Chambord, Orleans, Clermont-Ferrand, La Chaise-Dieu, Le Puy and Fontainebleau. There are also several descriptions of elaborate funeral processions, in some of which the writer took part himself.
In September 1863, the writer travelled by way of Sheffield and Newcastle to Scotland. Crossing the border at Berwick upon Tweed, the writer then went on to Edinburgh. He then travelled up the east coast, passing by but apparently not stopping at Balmoral Castle, to Aberdeen and then on to Inverness, crossed to Fort William and travelled down the west coast to Glasgow, visiting Loch Lomond and Glencoe, and finally travelled south by way of Lanark, crossing back into England at Carlisle.
The fourth and final tour took place in September 1864 and was chiefly confined to Yorkshire. The writer first travelled to Sheffield, where he had difficulty finding a room owing to the annual Cutler's Fair but did manage to procure a visitor's pass for the renowned John Brown's "Plate Armour Rolling Mills". After a short stay at Whitby, he visited the ruins of Rievaulx and Fountains Abbey, and provides detailed descriptions of both. At Darlington he saw Stephenson's Rocket. After a brief stay in Harrogate, a three day tour of the West Riding took him finally to Haworth, where he visited the Brontë Parsonage and Church, where the door-keeper, who had known Charlotte, pointed out the pew in which she had sat and showed him the record of her marriage to Mr. Nicholls in the parish register kept in the vestry.
At the end of the volume, there is a final commonplace section, which includes extracts from guidebooks and also an apparently traced MS drawing depicting a sheep station in New Zealand with caption "The subjoined is a rough sketch of a sheep farm in New Zealand sent by my nephew Samuel Butler Esqr to his family in England, representing his domicile".
Format
Archives or Manuscripts
Added to Catalog
April 06, 2006
References
John Worsley, Travel Diary Detailing Four Tours of Europe and Great Britain. James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
Cite as
John Worsley, Travel Diary Detailing Four Tours of Europe and Great Britain. James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
Subjects
Genre/Form
Diaries.
Bookmark As
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