Women's Travel Writings in Post-Napoleonic France

This eight-volume facsimile set comprises firsthand accounts of continental travel in the early nineteenth century.

In Part I Anne Carter witnesses the monarchy’s return to power and the capital in her visit to Paris, while Frances Jane Carey ranges all over the country and particularizes the customs and everyday existence of its people. Marianne Baillie ventures much further afield in her 1819 work, exploring France, Italy and Switzerland, among other nations, while Elizabeth Byron daringly rides a boat along the Loire, defying the gendarmes as she navigates the culture and history she finds on the river’s banks as well as the contemporary political exchanges that threaten to stop her tour. Each writer is excited about visiting new realms while also affirming the differences between their own country’s practices and landscapes and those they witness on their Continental tours.

Part II deals with two longer works: Frances Trollope provides a comparison of French and English customs and character traits, whilst managing to inject more serious observations on the state of French society post-revolution; and Lady Morgan looks at France's parallels with Ireland in a travelogue which also functions as a study of socio-political change.

• All texts are republished in full
• Selected for their rarity, the texts are drawn from Chawton House’s unparalleled collection
• Most of the texts included have never before been republished
• Each set in the series includes a substantial general introduction, headnotes, endnotes and a consolidated index in their final volume
• Each facsimile page is digitally cleaned and enhanced, significantly improving on the quality and legibility of the original

Contents

Part I

Volume 1
Marianne Baillie, First Impressions on a Tour upon the Continent (1819)
Detailing her travels through France and Italy, as well as other nations, Baillie’s narrative reveals the ways in which these countries regard their own national identities in Napoleon’s wake, as well as the ways in which this English traveller positions them in relation to her own nation. Her opinionated humour make this tour a lively and informative one, while her first impressions are bluntly recorded.
Volume 2
Frances Jane Carey, Journal of a Tour in France in the Years 1816 and 1817 (1823)
Carey defines her own narrative against those of her predecessors openly, and she provides a fascinatingly detailed glimpse into the lives and history of France and its people in her tour, begun in Autumn 1816. From schools to carriages, she illuminates our understanding of France and Britain during the Romantic period, with a thorough assessment of contemporary practices and everyday life.
Volume 3
Elizabeth Strutt Byron, Six Weeks on the Loire (1833)
In this bold adventure, Byron journeys down the Loire and its environs, determined to take readers both along the river and into the cities and museums she experiences on the way. She depicts the political strife she encounters on her journey as she explores the history and culture of the land and people in turmoil.
Volume 4
Anne Carter, Letters from a Lady to her sister during a Tour to Paris (1814)
With the enthusiasm of a young lady knowingly witnessing history, Carter details the return of the king and the celebratory transition of a nation and people in her account of Spring 1814 in Paris. Her fresh discoveries of the city’s wonders also uncover her own nation’s interaction with France and its population.

Part II

Volumes 5 & 6
Frances Trollope, Paris and the Parisians in 1835 (1836)
In this her third travel book, Trollope purports to skirt along the surfaces of Parisian life, comparing French and English national characteristics, rather than supplying a historical or otherwise connected narrative. Yet her good-natured, often humorous accounts of ‘some very pleasant sparring’ between characters of opposing politics – ‘republicans’ and ‘legitimatists’ – betrays her more serious underlying investigation into the state of French society and its prospects in the wake of the July Revolution of 1830.
Volumes 7 & 8
Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan, France (1817)
Tracing social improvement in post-revolutionary France to the Revolution itself, while sensitive to parallels that might be drawn with her native Ireland, Lady Morgan’s account of her 1816 residence in Paris and her brief provincial tours is self-consciously political, and drew upon itself the Tory outrage of the Quarterly Review. Though controversial, the travelogue also showcases Morgan’s keen analysis of class and gender divisions as well as her wide acquaintance with the leading literary, scientific, and political figures of post-Napoleonic Paris.

Related titles

• The Social Problem Novels of Frances Trollope
• The Travel Writings of John Moore
• The Widow and Wedlock Novels of Frances Trollope
• Women's Travel Writings in Iberia
• Women's Travel Writings in North Africa and the Middle East
• Women's Travel Writings in Revolutionary France
• Women’s Travel Writings in Italy

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