Ladies of the Grand Tour - Review

Contemporary Review, Oct, 2001

Ladies of the Grand Tour. Brian Dolan. HarperCollins. [pound]19.99. 338 pages. ISBN 0-00-710532-0. The 'grand tour' usually refers to young Englishmen who had the money with which to tour Europe in search for sophistication, stature and, as the eighteenth century wore on, 'enlightenment'. This book is a study of those women who did the same and for whom European travel proved a great assistance in their pursuit of intellectual acceptance back in Britain.

They travelled, in the author's words, 'to abandon homespun prejudices and escape the gossip and foolish attitudes towards foreign manners'. They travelled, in short, to be free of England as well as to see other countries, especially France and Italy. More than their male equivalents, women 'wrote up' their travels in which they were concerned with 'individual growth, independence and health'. Travel gave these women 'education, entertainment, physical exercise and an escape route'. (It also gave them occasions for flirting, health cures and places to gambl e.) These women were the precursors of that great wave of lady travellers who set out from Britain in the nineteenth century to amuse the natives they visited and to instruct their fellow countryman back home. This study makes a valuable contribution to the growing number of books about British travellers and their contribution to British history.