Print and Tourism: Travel-related Publications from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century

This volume brings together academic scholars at all career stages and book industry practitioners to explore some key moments in the history of travel writing and publishing through the use of case studies about Britain or British travellers. The chapters are arranged in chronological order, from the sixteenth to the late twentieth centuries. Some of the printed forms discussed, such as Wainwright’s Guides, will be familiar to scholars, whilst others, such as the nineteenth century paper peepshows or the Edinburgh fringe fliers, are more unusual forms of touristic print. The emphasis is on the production, distribution and consumption of such items and considers the social and cultural impact that printed ephemera had on particular audiences, dependent on time and place. The volume demonstrates that across a long chronological period, travel and tourism and printing and publishing are intimately bound together.
This book speaks to intersecting scholarly communities working on these four themes: travel and tourism and printing and publishing. The sub-discipline of travel studies, especially in its historical context, has long focused on the way that printed artefacts have resulted from and resulted in travel for a variety of purposes, including exploration, commercial exploitation and leisure. While tourism studies scholars tend to explore the contemporary world and its fascination with travel, book historians have acknowledged the ways that publications about travel in the past have driven the financial and cultural success of many authors, booksellers, printers and later publishers.