'Sound Information and Innocent Amusement': John Murray's Books on the Move

Abstract

British tourism in its modern form developed from about the 1830s onwards. Europe had become more accessible again after the Napoleonic Wars, and new commercial infrastructures, faster and interconnected modes of transport, above all the emerging railway network and steam-ships, as well as extended networks of communication, were forming a frame for the emerging mass tourism that was to have enormous commercial and cultural consequences. A major factor in this process was print culture: in continental reading rooms like Galignani in Paris, in hotels, lending libraries like the Gabinetto Vieusseux in Florence and bookshops like Spithöver’s in Rome, print material in English was becoming widely distributed and available. It not only influenced the ways in which the British performed abroad as tourists or perceived continental culture, but also constituted public spaces for social interaction where they would share their experiences with other itinerant readers. Print material helped to construct collective narratives that confirmed the British self-image of an ‘imagined community’ abroad.