The Mediterranean Passion: Victorians and Edwardians in the South (Oxford paperbacks) - Tapa blanda

This work describes how, in the period from 1830-1914, journeys to the Mediterranean became part of the British way of life and the British way of death. A revolution in transport enabled the middle classes to follow the aristocracy to the south in pursuit of culture, health, pleasure and spiritual inspiration. There are quotes from the letters and diaries of Matthew Arnold, Aubrey Beardsley, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Dickens and other writers and notables of the time, as well as those of merchants, clergymen, artists, teachers and missionaries - and contemporary writings in the form of many travel guidebooks. It describes how the British travelled - by road, by rail, by P & O, showing where they went, from Monte Carlo to the Holy Land, and why they went - pilgrimage, culture and health but also for hidden motives. The work explores the medical, religious, sexual and aesthetic dimensions of journeys, and attempts to expose the tension between the world that they discovered and the world they created.