The Travel Writings of Marguerite Blessington

Aneta Lipska

Description

First monograph of the travel writings of Marguerite Blessington (1788–1849).

If Marguerite Blessington (1788–1849) – the “most gorgeous lady” in Dr. Samuel Parr’s words – is ever remembered today, it is mostly for her famous literary salon and for her ‘Conversations of Lord Byron’ (1833 l–34), one of the poet’s early biographies. She is also infamous for the relationship with her step-daughter’s husband, the French dandy Count D’Orsay. Hardly anything, however, has been written on Blessington as a traveller and a travel writer. In 1820 she set off on a series of tours, in the course of which she kept journals which were then published as ‘A Tour in The Isle of Wight, in the Autumn of 1820’ (1822), ‘Journal of a Tour through the Netherlands to Paris in 1821’ (1822), ‘The Idler in Italy’ (1839) and ‘The Idler in France’ (1841).

Convinced that Marguerite Blessington merits scholarly attention as a travel writer, Aneta Lipska’s ‘The Travel Writings of Marguerite Blessington’ offers the first detailed analysis of Blessington’s four travel books. This book reveals that travelling and travel writing offered Blessington endless opportunities to reshape her public personae, demonstrating that her predilection for self-fashioning was related to the various tendencies in tourism and literature as well as the changing aesthetic and social trends in the first half of the nineteenth century. The book argues that the author constructed diverse images of herself, depending on the circumstances in which she found herself. The early travel accounts foreground the personae of a chaperoned woman traveller and a novice writer, allowing her admission to the genre of travel writing. The mature travel writings present her to the public as indeed the “most gorgeous lady” on the tour and a seasoned travel writer solidifying her position as a celebrity.

List of Illustrations; List of Abbreviations; Acknowledgements; Preface; Introduction; Part I: Texts; 1. Paratexts; 2. From life to text; 3. Fictional strategies; Part II : Images; 4. Natural sceneries; 5. Ruins and edifices; 6. Sacred art and religious practices; Part III: Spaces; 7. Genoa: Byron’s companion; 8. Naples: Lady of the house; 9. Rome and Venice: Romantic traveller; 10. Paris: Writer of fashion and revolution; Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Sujets

• 19th century
• Modern history
• Literary criticism
• Obermodern-Zutzendorf

Informations

• Publié par: Anthem Press
• Date de parution: 01 juin 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783086801
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Travel Writings of Marguerite Blessington
ANTHEM STUDIES IN TRAVEL
Anthem Studies in Travel publishes new and pioneering work in the burgeoning field of travel studies. Titles in this series engage with questions of travel, travel writing, literature and history, and encompass some of the most exciting current scholarship in a variety of disciplines. Proposals for monographs and collections of essays may focus on research representing a broad range of geographical zones and historical contexts. All critical approaches are welcome, although a key feature of books published in the series will be their potential interest to a wide readership, as well as their originality and potential to break new ground in research.
Series Editor
Charles Forsdick – University of Liverpool, UK
Editorial Board
Mary Baine Campbell – Brandeis University, USA
Steve Clark – University of Tokyo, Japan
Claire Lindsay – University College London, UK
Loredana Polezzi – University of Warwick, UK
Paul Smethurst – University of Hong Kong, China
The Travel Writings of Marguerite Blessington
The Most Gorgeous Lady on the Tour
Aneta Lipska
Anthem Press
An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company
www.anthempress.com

This edition first published in the UK and USA in 2017
by ANTHEM PRESS
75–76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK
or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK
and
244 Madison Ave #116, New York, NY 10016, USA

© Aneta Lipska 2017

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested.

ISBN-13: 978-1-78308-678-8 (Hbk)
ISBN-10: 1-78308-678-5 (Hbk)

This title is also available as an e-book.
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgements
Preface
Introduction
Part I. TEXTS
1. Paratexts
2. From Life to Text
3. Fictional Strategies
Part II. IMAGES
4. Natural Sceneries
5. Ruins and Edifices
6. Sacred Art and Religious Practices
Part III. SPACES
7. Genoa: Byron’s Companion
8. Naples: Lady of the House
9. Rome and Venice: Romantic Traveller
10. Paris: Writer of Fashion and Revolution
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
ILLUSTRATIONS
P.1 James Godsell Middleton (fl. 1826–1872), Margaret Power, Countess of Blessington (1789–1849) (after Sir Thomas Lawrence)
1.1 Advertisement of works by Lady Blessington published by Mr. Colburn . Back matter of the second edition of The Idler in France (1842, vol. 2)
4.1 Samuel Bradshaw (fl. 1832–1880), The Undercliff, Isle of Wight, as seen after passing the church of St. Lawrence, on the way to Black Gang (after William Leighton Leitch)
8.1 Italian (Neapolitan) School, circa 1800. Palazzo Belvedere, Naples . Watercolour and black wash on paper
ABBREVIATIONS CLB Marguerite Blessington. Conversations of Lord Byron IiI Marguerite Blessington. The Idler in Italy IiF Marguerite Blessington. The Idler in France IoW Marguerite Blessington. A Tour in the Isle of Wight, in the Autumn of 1820 NtP Marguerite Blessington. Journal of a Tour through the Netherlands to Paris, in 1821
See the bibliography for full references.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book would not have been written without the help and encouragement of several people. I am particularly grateful to Professor Zbigniew Białas for being an enthusiastic reader of my work, for his expert advice on travel writing and his continued support over the years of my research. I also want to thank Dr Ewa Wełnic, who introduced me to the field of literary studies and has always shown genuine interest in my work.
My thanks go to Professor Ann R. Hawkins and Professor Susanne Schmid for sharing with me their expertise in the life and work of Marguerite Blessington and for reaffirming my conviction that she is worth devoting years of scholarly pursuit to her. I am indebted to the readers of the manuscript, Professor Magdalena Ożarska, Professor Grzegorz Moroz and the three anonymous reviewers for Anthem, who offered insightful comments and valuable suggestions, as well as my proofreader, Dr Stuart McWilliams, for his accuracy and meticulousness.
My gratitude is also due to the editorial board of the Anthem Studies in Travel series for accepting my book proposal, and to the Anthem team for a fruitful and professional cooperation.
Finally, I want to thank my son, Tadeusz, for being my ever-present joy and motivation to do my best, and my husband, Jakub, who has been my severest critic, erudite guide and constant companion throughout this long journey. I dedicate this book to them.
PREFACE
This book is about a largely overlooked woman travel writer, an author whose texts merit scholarly attention yet tend not to receive it, even in the most appropriate contexts. To give but two examples, in the recently published Idleness , Indolence and Leisure in English Literature (Fludernik and Nandi, 2014), there is a chapter on Victorian travel writing, and in another work devoted to similar issues – Leisure and the Irish in the Nineteenth Century (Lane and Murphy, 2016) – there are essays on ‘Leisure in Literature’, ‘Leisure, Tourism and Travel’ and ‘Leisure and Female Élites’. None of these mentions Marguerite Blessington’s two travel accounts, The Idler in Italy (1839–40) and The Idler in France (1841). Blessington’s works are relevant examples in every way, yet they are not familiar enough today to be included, even though they were popular among readers in her time, 1 and the author’s life and activities have been of interest to today’s scholars. The idea that lies behind this book is thus to propose a critical reading of Marguerite Blessington’s four travel narratives, and to broadly contextualize them within social, cultural and literary phenomena of the first half of the nineteenth century.
Marguerite Blessington’s first recorded journey, to the Isle of Wight, took place in 1820. In 1822 she anonymously published a journal from the tour – A Tour in the Isle of Wight in the Autumn of 1820 . In 1821 Blessington made a relatively short tour of the Continent, the anonymous account of which, Journal of a Tour through the Netherlands to Paris, in 1821 , also appeared in print in 1822. In the same year Blessington commenced her proper Continental tour, which continued until 1830. This long-lasting journey resulted in the publication of two travel accounts – the three-volume Idler in Italy in 1839 and 1840, and the two-volume Idler in France in 1841. 2 There was a gap of almost 20 years between Blessington’s early and later texts. What is more, her Continental tour lasted nearly a decade, and the account of it was published 10 years after its completion. That interval of 20 years was not only an eventful period in Blessington’s life but also in the history of British tourism.
The period was framed by two significant events. In 1820 the first regular cross-Channel streamer service started, and in 1845 Thomas Cook organized his first commercial tour. Within that period, it was fashionable among British travellers to explore their own country (Hooper 2002 , 174; Buzard 2002 , 38), yet after the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, a great number of them also headed to the Continent (Buzard 1993 , 19). With the advance of travel infrastructure, travelling became more accessible and affordable for anyone who wished to travel, irrespective of their social and financial status. Little by little, the traditional Grand Tour was superseded by mass tourism (Buzard 2002 , 47–48).
These events greatly influenced the contemporary understanding of travel. After the opening of the Continent in 1815, British travellers would gradually depart from the established itineraries of the Grand Tour, searching for individual and authentic contact with the foreign (Cardinal 2002 , 137). Yet, as the number of people travelling with this very purpose significantly increased, destinations favouring personal experience would become consumer products (ibid., 154). Travel writing of the period was a barometer of these evolving attitudes – anchored in tradition, saturated with Romanticism yet heralding the coming of a new Victorian reality – which manifested itself in the evolution from standardized handbooks to private records of personal experience and then to texts geared towards mass consumption.
The two-decade period was also diverse in literary terms. Richard Cronin designates the writers of the years between 1824 and 1840 as ‘Romantic Victorians’, since they were suspended between the two literary epochs. Their texts drew on their predecessors, yet they already bore the hallmarks of the coming literary trends (Cronin 2002 , 2–3). Blessington is present in Cronin’s study as Byron’s biographer, but she also fits well in this circ