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Stanford University Press, Published 1990. Paperback, xvi, 269 pp.; 26 cm; illustrated with black-and-white reproductions of paintings, drawings, prints and manuscript pages, and 4 maps. Paperback printing 1990 (first published in the U.S.A. 1989; originating publisher Scolar Press, Aldershot); printed in Great Britain.
In Good condition. Pale green illustrated paper covers with light bumping and creasing to edges and corners, mild shelf and edge wear, and light scuffing and soiling. Rear cover with a scuffed white patch (about 1 inch square) at lower right beside the ISBN label, where a removed price sticker lifted the surface coating. Binding tight. Previous owners' ex libris stamp in black ink and faint residue of an erased pencil price at upper corner of half-title; otherwise pages clean and unmarked. A study of the eighteenth-century cult of the Picturesque and the tourists who went in search of it. Part I traces the rise of Picturesque taste through poetry, landscape painting (Claude, Gaspard Dughet, Salvator Rosa) and the tourist's equipment. Part II follows the four classic tours (the Wye Valley, North Wales, the Lakes and the Scottish Highlands) through published and manuscript travel journals, from William Gilpin to the Wordsworths. Illustrations include work by Paul Sandby, John Sell Cotman, Samuel Ireland, George Cumberland and Alexander Runciman. Each tour has a map drawn by Robert Williams, and the book ends with a select bibliography of the tours and biographical notes on the writers and minor painters associated with the Picturesque. Contents: Preface; Acknowledgements; List of Illustrations; List of Maps; Part I, The Rise of the Picturesque: Poetry and the Discovery of British Landscape; Landscape Painting and the Picturesque Formulae; The Evolution of Picturesque Taste, 1750-1800; Travelling 'Knick-Knacks'; Part II, The Picturesque Tours: The Wye Valley Tour: River Scenery and Ruins; The North Wales Tour: Mountains and Bards; The Tour to the Lakes; The Highlands Tour and the Ossianic Sublime; Select Bibliography of the Tours; Biographical Notes; Notes and References; Index.