GLOBETROTTER: Victorian Excursions In India, China and Japan

A beautiful British Library publication by the former Curator of Decorative Arts and Material Culture at the National Maritime Museum. In the mid 19th century, as new routes opened up, a new generation of travellers embarked on excursions to India, China and Japan. Globetrotters - leisure tourists with a keen interest in experiencing authentic culture - flocked to the East, casting aside preconceptions and gravitating towards what they hoped to be the unchanged landscapes and traditions of Eastern culture. During their travels the globetrotters dined on unusual delicacies such as bird's nest soup, and ventured into forbidden territory, entering tombs and temples not listed in the tourists' guidebooks and visiting locations with illicit reputations. Their letters home were frequently accompanied by photographs of themselves, often in costume, taken in the cosmopolitan studios of China and Japan. Much like the museums set up by these travellers on their return, the book is a curation of curios, encounters, lavishly illustrated with reproductions of early, hand-coloured photography. The numerous excursions recounted journeys of questioning preconceptions of Eastern cultures and of self-transformation through travel. There are natural history specimens, double page artworks of carpet weavers, advertisements for curry powder, the tea process, Chinese food and modes and manners of dining, geyshers bathing (the semi-nude figure on the far right was cropped by the publisher) and the Byculla Club, one of the most exclusive clubs in Bombay among the hundreds of authentic sepia coloured and mono images. Plus other glorious full page colour pictures, 16.5 x 24cm, 256pp.
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