A Journey Made in the Summer of 1794, through Holland and the Western Frontier of Germany,

with a Return down the Rhine: to which are added Observations During a Tour to the Lakes of Lancashire, Westmoreland, and Cumberland.

Second edition. Two volumes. 8vo. vi, 479, [1, blank]; [2], 423, [1, blank] pp. Contemporary speckled brown calf, spines with five raised bands outlined in gilt, second and fifth panels lettered and numbered in gilt, the rest elaborately tooled in gilt. London, Robinson.

The publication of a travel narrative by Ann Radcliffe is a great testament to the author’s popularity in after the success of The Mysteries of Udolpho. “Everybody was eager to read what Mrs. Radcliffe thought about anything. The Journal of a Tour did not sell as the romances did, but such notable critics as the famous Ladies of Llangollen and Miss Anne Seward were much pleased with it.” (Grant). 

Radcliffe is often praised for her description of landscapes which she was understood to have brought “to a new peak of perfection, an expertise particularly evident in the way in which she interweaves the sublime and picturesque into the fabric of her narratives.” (ODNB). 

“The relevant portion of the Journey, like the diary excerpts in Talfourd’s ‘Memoir’, are concerned with Ann Radcliffe’s reaction to the sublime, the beautiful, and the Gothic in the landscape and architecture which she saw in England. Like many contemporary travellers before and after her, she observed the landscape with an eye taught to discriminate among the natural features she passed through according to the rules of the picturesque […] Like Burke, she emphasizes the psychological effect of the sublime which produces ‘a high tone of mind’ and, when simply adorned, does not ‘jar upon the feelings’” (Murray). 

A very good set, some browning to endpapers, and bookplates to paste-downs. 

E. B. Murray, Ann Radcliffe. Aline Grant, Ann Radcliffe: A Biography.  

Stock Code: 242959