“Go, Little Book:”A Historical Investigation of Tourism Guidebooks to

London, England

By

Alexandra C. GeitzDecember 2014

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for theMaster of Arts in History

Dual-Degree Program in History and Archives ManagementSimmons College

Boston, Massachusetts

The author grants Simmons College permission to include this thesis in its Library and to make it available to the academic community for scholarly purposes.

Submitted by

_________________________________

Approved by:

______ Dr. Sarah Leonard (thesis advisor) Dr. Stephen Ortega (second reader)

© 2014, Alexandra C. Geitz

The title is taken from the epigraph included in many of the nineteenth century English-language Baedeker Handbook publications:

“Go, little book, God send thee good passage,And specially let this be thy prayere

Unto them all that they will read or hear,Where thou art wrong, after their help to call,

Thee to correct in any part or all,”Chaucer. 1380.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter I: Defining the Framework: Why Guidebooks? …………………………….1

Part I: Introduction…………………………………………………………………….1

Part II: Historiography…………………………………………………………………9

Chapter II: Guidebook Genesis: Antecedents and Progenitors……………..............25

Chapter III: London as Tourist Destination………………………………………….41

Chapter IV: Conclusions: Modern Tourism and Identity…………………………...69

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………….……72

Primary Sources…………………………………..………………………………….72

Secondary Sources…………………………………………………………………...74

CHAPTER IDEFINING THE FRAMEWORK: WHY GUIDEBOOKS?

Part I: Introduction

The genesis of the travel guidebook as a literary genre in the mid-nineteenth century

coincides with a definitive shift in the actualization of the human impulse to travel. Before and

even during much of the eighteenth century, the arduous task of moving from one location to

another was largely relegated to the realm of religious pilgrimages, edifying tours, and

permanent migrations. Travel guidebooks, as opposed to the broader category of travel literature

and travelogues, represent a transition in which increasingly more people began to not only read

about places foreign to them, but also required the instructions to navigate these locations as the

ability and motivation to travel became more common and leisurely. The technical development

of more efficient modes of transportation and an increased infrastructure catering to the

temporary visitor were certainly instrumental in the exponential growth of travel activities during

the last century. However, a survey of travel guidebooks reveals an element to the travel and

tourism industry that goes beyond the simple metrics of increased movement and profit. These

books suggest that an intricate process of cultural presentation and identity creation occurred

contingently with the proliferation of tourist activities in locations around the world. And what

better way to explore the full identification process of a tourist location than with a case study of

one of the first meccas of leisurely tourist activity in Western Europe: London, England.

The impact of tourist activities on the presentation and representation of the city of

London’s identity was chosen because of the extensive reach and influence that tourism has had

in the shaping and construction of this modern city, and the rest of the world. Point of fact, the

World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) names “travel and tourism” as one of the world’s

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largest industries, currently generating 9.5 % of the global GDP.1 And it is within this very

lucrative and high volume industry that the city of London is ranked as one of the most visited

cities in the world.2 The draw of this particular city is especially exaggerated in the category of

“cultural” or “historical” tourism, giving this thesis the dual opportunity to discuss how the city

itself is represented broadly in tourism materials, and also how the representations of particular

tourist sites or attractions have been altered or adjusted as the city’s overall image has grown and

diversified.

The premise of this thesis will hopefully fill a void in the current scholarly work on

tourism development and its place in history. While many academics that venture into the realm

of Western and First World tourism analysis primarily focus on the economic and infrastructural

changes that occur as a result of the increasing presence of tourists, my focus will be on the

cultural repercussions of the tourism industry on the presentation and identity of the destination.

I chose to focus on London, England as a case study because of the city’s early designation as a

tourist destination, in corroboration with the fact that the city’s numerous cultural attractions

allow for an interesting examination of the way that the presentation and very understanding of a

Western tourism site can be manipulated within the framework of the tourism industry. This

culturally focused investigation style is frequently employed in the scholarship on tourist

1 “Mission,” World Travel and Tourism Council, accessed November 2, 2014, http://www.wttc.org/mission/2 London was calculated as the second most visited world city by international arrivals according to a 2013 MasterCard sponsored “Global Destinations Cities Index,” while in 2014 The Independent reported that London officially overtook Paris as the most popular city with foreign tourists in the world, with a recorded 16.8 million visitors to London in 2013. Yuwa Hedrick-Wong and Desmond Choog, MasterCard: Global Destination Cities Index (MasterCard, 2013), accessed November 8, 2014, http://insights.mastercard.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Mastercard_GDCI_Final_V4.pdf; Adam Withnall, “London overtakes Paris to become world’s most popular destination for foreign tourists,” The Independent, May 8, 2014, accessed November 9, 2014, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/london-overtakes-paris-to-become-worlds-most-popular-destination-for-foreign-tourists-9340154.html.

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destinations in the developing world, but I hope to bring this more thorough level of cultural

analysis to a city that is considered by many Western inhabitants to be above the corruptible

facets of the tourist industry. In order to appropriately and honestly examine these seemingly

esoteric and elusive facets of London’s identity and culture within the tourism framework,

tourism guidebooks, being consistently published and updated since the mid-nineteenth century,

will serve as the central source in this historical investigation.

Guidebooks and other travel manuals appear at the outset to be very unlikely candidates

for a serious intellectual investigation of the London Tourism industry. These vade mecums are

brief in both volume and intellectual content, can be repetitive in format and presentation, and

are considered obsolete of their intended purpose after only a short few years, requiring constant

revisions. But imagine (or remember) the abject fear or disorientation that accompanies many a

traveler’s interaction with unknown streets and unfamiliar cultural and social norms, particularly

when traveling internationally. In this context, the guidebook is not only a conveniently

organized and simplistic compilation of navigational tips and information, but also a sort of

talisman against the physical manifestations of panic and culture shock. Armed with a copy of a

trusted Baedeker, Murray, or Rick Steves’ Guide, even the most tentative tourist can be

persuaded that their jaunt through unfamiliar territory is trusted and sanctioned by the transcribed

voice of an experienced and knowledgeable guide. As early as 1850, one British journalist was

adamant that “by the help of Murray [guidebooks], the veriest cockney, the greenest school-boy,

and the meekest country clergyman may leave his counter, his school, or his parsonage, and

make his way through all of Europe comfortably, cheaply, and expeditiously.”3 This often

emotional and lifeline-like aura attributed to tourism guidebooks, especially by those attempting

3 From The Times, Dec. 2, 1850. Quoted in Murray’s handbook for modern London. Modern London; or, London as it is, by J. Murray (London: J. Murray, 1851), v.

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to navigate a particularly foreign environment, is one of the reasons I have chosen to focus on

this genre for my thesis study.

In addition to the visceral importance that guidebooks play in the establishment of a

secure and stable touristic experience, the literal function and format of these guidebooks makes

them excellent fodder for the study of tourism’s impact on the identity and geography of the city

of London. Because of their consistent use throughout the development of the tourism industry in

this particular location, these guides demonstrate how the infiltration and impact of the tourism

industry into the city over time is reflected in and even shaped by the content made available to

tourists in these incredibly handy (often literally) guidebooks. Since these books would have

been one of, if not the only, source referenced by tourists before and during their travels, they

represent a level of insight into the mindset of the tourist and how they conceptualize and

understand the city as both a metropolis and tourist destination. The guidebooks also present

more information about the cultural understanding and identity of the city of London than a

purely economic or statistical analysis of tourist activities could ever reveal. While it is important

to understand the trends in population movement and the physical development of tourism

infrastructure, this thesis will primarily focus on the way that culture and identity is portrayed

within the covers of tourism guidebooks to London and how this presentation has adapted and

shifted over time. The use of guidebooks as source material within scholarly work, and as a

research topic in their own right, has become a more common endeavor in recent literature. I will

discuss this increased attention on guidebooks in academia later in my discussion of the

historiography of tourism studies.

I have chosen to focus my thesis investigation on two specific publication series of

tourism guidebooks. The first is Karl Baedeker’s English-language guidebook series, London

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and its Environs, and its derivatives. These publications constitute a date range from 1878

through 2012. John Murray’s4 English-language guidebook series, Handbook to London as it is,

will also be examined, in addition to the series crafted by James and Findley Muirhead after their

acquisition of the rights to the Murray guidebooks in 1915, The Blue Guides London. Guidebook

publishing under the branding of these two names has run a linear course, with the first Murray

Handbook to London published in 1849, and the latest Blue Guide being released in 2014.

Settling on these specific tourism guidebook publications was a natural decision for a couple

reasons.

First, both Baedeker and Murray were instrumental in the development and proliferation

of the commonly recognizable format and presentation of the tourism guidebook during the mid

nineteenth century. Their contributions in the early stages of guidebook development radically

impacted both the packaging of the guidebook template and the enormous popularity this genre

gained and maintained through the twenty first century. Second, each publishing firm was

producing specific guidebooks to London continuously throughout the time period being

examined in this thesis. The first Baedeker guidebook to London was published in 1878, and

guidebooks to London have been published under the Baedeker name ever since. While the

Murray firm published its first guidebook to London in 1849,5 the progression of the Murray

publications is a bit more complicated, since James and Findley Muirhead obtained the rights to

John Murray’s guidebooks in 1915. Although the early twentieth century regime change does

alter the method of examining these particular guidebooks as they transition from Murray

4 Although the official full name of the John Murray discussed at length throughout this thesis is John Murray III, I will be referring to him simply as John Murray. In all of his publications he acknowledges himself only as John Murray, and his Library of Congress Name Authority File further substantiates my rationale, as it consists of only the following information: Murray, John, 1808 – 1892. However, to avoid confusion later in the thesis, any reference to John Murray’s son (also named John Murray) will include the suffix IV.5 Peter Cunningham, A Handbook for London, Past and Present (London: John Murray, 1849).

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Handbooks to The Blue Guides, I believe this variation is not only acceptable, but even

beneficial to the overall argument of this thesis. Since the development of these particular

guidebook publications progressed chronologically and with no overlap, their continued

existence demonstrates the consistency of guidebook format even in the wake of new editing and

presentation styles.

Limiting this thesis study to these two guidebook publications was necessary in order to

complete a longitudinal survey of the presentation of London identity within tourism guidebooks

between the mid nineteenth to early twenty first centuries. The consistency in authorship and

editing in the publications should minimize the need to account for personally motivated

alterations to content presentation and format within the particular guidebook brands, thereby

exhibiting more acutely the societal, political, and even geographical trends occurring within the

realm of tourism guidebook publication and the wider world of the tourism industry. Unpacking

the alterations in format, emphasis, and presentation of the city of London and its tourist

attractions within these guidebooks will allow for reflection on the overarching trends in how the

tourist destination is displayed to the potential tourist audience. Through this mode of

investigation, I hope to reveal the profound cultural and societal impacts that the tourism

industry has had on the presentation and understanding of the city of London both within and

without the tourism framework.

Identifying and obtaining the sources required for this survey was an interesting

endeavor, as it was relatively easy to access the nineteenth century guidebooks, while locating

the twentieth and even twenty first century sources was a more involved task. Luckily for my

investigation, all of the guidebooks to London published by both Baedeker and Murray before

1922 are now out of copyright, and are fully available as a digitized document on various

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Internet library webpages.6 Since the primary objective of my research is to analyze the text

printed within the guidebooks, the digitization of these early works was a welcome relief. While

the physical versions of these early works still exist and are even actively circulated within

library systems, the digitized versions allowed for continuous and easy access. It was necessary,

however, to employ a more pointed search for hard copies of the twentieth and twenty first

century guidebooks that are still under copyright. But since many editions of the Baedeker and

Blue Guides guidebooks to London are still held in the catalog of numerous circulating libraries,

it was a simple matter of interlibrary loaning the specific editions needed to perform my

research.

The hardest part of obtaining my resources was, ironically, identifying exactly what my

resources were. As stated previously, until very recently, guidebooks have been very much a part

of the temporal landscape in which they are first presented and published. After several years,

the information they contain becomes largely obsolete, as the publishers craft more up-to-date

editions. Such an environment of ongoing progress promotes a habit of neglect, wherein older

editions of guidebooks become forgotten or disposed of. This situation results in the loss of

information that the guidebooks contain, as well as the knowledge of when a guidebook was

published or by whom. Thankfully, in the last few decades, collectors and academics alike have

made concerted efforts to identify and locate forgotten or misidentified guidebooks, especially

those published by Baedeker and Murray. Numerous bibliographies have been published that

document, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the various series and editions of guidebooks.

Alex W. Hinrichsen, a leading authority on the Baedeker publishing house and

guidebooks, published an updated revision to his bibliography of all Baedeker guidebook 6 The website that had the best presentation of the guidebook text in an easily navigable interface was, in my opinion, the Hathi Trust Digital Library. Accessed December 5, 2014, http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/mb?colltype=updated.

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publications in 1991. This German-language catalogue is considered to be the definitive

bibliographical list of Baedeker guidebooks. At this last revision, Hinrichsen listed a total

guidebook count (including all editions published in German, English, French) at just short of

1000 guidebook publications by the Baedeker firm between 1832 and 1990. 7 Bibliographies of

Baedeker guidebooks have also been published with much narrower foci, for instance,

Greenwood Press’ bibliography of all English-language guidebook editions published before

World War II.8 Similar bibliographies are also available to document the publications of John

Murray’s guidebooks, with a relatively comprehensive source available in the W. B. C. Lister’s

bibliography published in 1993.9 These sources have been indispensible to my research process,

allowing me to identify and confirm the existence of numerous guidebook editions. Although

there is still significant room for error, especially with the guidebook volumes that do not include

a definitive print date,10 my ability to more accurately identify, locate, and then obtain a

representative selection of guidebooks from the nineteenth through twenty first centuries was due

largely to the organizational work and research already performed by other scholars.

And with my guidebooks firmly in hand, I begin my investigation by first examining the

historiography of tourism studies literature, in order to contextualize my analysis of tourism 7 Alex W. Hinrichsen, Baedeker’s Reisehandbücher, 1832 – 1990: Bibliographie 1832 – 1944: Verzeichnis 1948 – 1990: Verlagsgeschichte mit Abbildungen und zusätzlichen Übersichten (Bevern: U. Hinrichsen, 1991).8 Baedeker’s Handbook(s) for Travellers: A bibliography of English editions published prior to World War II (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press Inc., 1976).9 W. B. C. Lister, A Bibliography of Murray’s Handbooks for Travellers and Biographies of Authors, Editors, Revisers, and Principal Contributors (Dereham: Dereham Books, 1993).10 Case in point, one particular edition of Murray’s Handbook to London as it is was published without a date included on the title page, or anywhere else obvious within the guidebook. And rather than listing the numerical iteration of the guidebook edition, the only description included on the title page is “New Edition Revised.” Due to this apparent lack of information, some digital scans of this work on the HathiTrust Digital Library contain either a penciled in rendering of the date, 1868, or are otherwise recognized as being a representation of this particular edition. The information to corroborate this information was most likely pulled from the original intake forms of the particular libraries, however, in private hands it would be very easy to mistake this undated guidebook for a later or earlier edition. John Murray, Handbook to London as it is (London: John Murray, 1868).

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guidebooks within the greater scholarship on tourism and tourist activities. Chapter two then

explores the development and establishment of the tourism guidebook genre and demonstrates its

inherent connection to and reflection of the development of the tourism industry, specifically in

the city of London. This chapter focuses heavily on the accomplishments and influence of Karl

Baedeker, John Murray, and their respective printing houses in the creation of the tourism

guidebook genre. Finally, chapter three presents an in depth analysis of the contents of the

Baedeker, Murray, and Blue Guides to London, England, with a particular emphasis on how the

guidebooks are formatted. A specific look at the way that the Buckingham Palace is represented

and understood within these guidebooks will be a major facet of the examination. This chapter

also considers how changes apparent over time and between contemporary publications reveal

the increased infiltration of the tourist framework into the overall identity of the city of London

and the inherent malleability of this identity.

Part II: Historiography

An investigation into the impact of tourism guidebooks would be insufficient without a

broader understanding of the development of the tourism industry that these guidebooks were

created to represent. The development of a unified field of “tourism studies” and the very nature

of the tourism industry as a simultaneously economic, social, political, environmental, and

cultural phenomenon is quite unique. The sheer magnitude of the infiltration of tourists and

tourism practices into the social framework of innumerable societies by the early twenty-first

century has created one of the modern world’s most rapidly expanding and diversifying

industries. The varied literature on the subject reflects the extensive and multifaceted nature of

the industry, with scholars and academics from diverse concentrations pursuing macro and micro

investigations of the tourism industry and the many facets that make up the system. There is also 9

a fluidity and malleability inherent in the conceptualization of the idea of tourism, exemplified

by the publications of multiple editions of scholarly works on tourism. John Urry and Jonas

Larsen state in the preface to the third edition of their sociological investigation of the tourism

industry, The Tourist Gaze 3.0, “this third edition of The Tourist Gaze radically restructures,

reworks and expands the two first editions to make this book relevant for tourism researchers,

students, planners and designers in the twenty-first century.” 11 This statement not only implies

that drastic developments occurred in the thought and theory of tourism studies between the

publication of the first edition in 1989 and the third in 2011, but also demonstrates how even

individual scholars have been forced to reconsider and update their own theories on tourism in

the wake of new academic research and developments within the tourism industry itself. This

historiography will identify and discuss the major themes that have been examined within the

literature on the tourism industry, with particular emphasis placed on how these themes have

diversified and segmented as the tourism industry (and the analysis of its workings) has

developed and changed over time.

The establishment of tourism as a legitimate topic of intellectual and academic

investigation is a relatively new development. Although there were a small number of scholarly

works published on the activities of tourists and tourism practices as early as the 1930s,12 these

were anomalous to a time period in which contemporary historical scholarship was predominated

by an emphasis on the grand narrative of political, diplomatic, and military history. And it was

not only the field of History that saw a hesitation in the serious study of leisure tourist activities

during this time period. The fields of Anthropology and Sociology, now heavily entrenched in

11 John Urry and John Larson, The Tourist Gaze 3.0 (London: SAGE Publications, 2011), xii. 12 Frederick Wolff Ogilvie, The Tourist Movement; An Economic Study (London: P.S. King and Son, 1933); A. J. Norval, The Tourist Industry; A National and International Survey (London: Sir. I. Pitman and Sons, 1936).

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studies of tourists and tourism, were also delayed in their acceptance of tourism studies as an

accredited specialty in the first half of the twentieth century. Authors within these various

academic fields generally date the first seminal tourism studies books to the late 1960s and

1970s. Sociologist Erik Cohen dates the “study of tourism as a sociological specialty, rather than

merely as an exotic, marginal topic” to the publication of the following works of the 1970s: his

own article, “Toward a Sociology of International Tourism,” published in the spring of 1972, and

Dean MacCannell’s article, “Staged Authenticity: Arrangements of Social Space in Tourist

Settings,” published in 1973.13 Anthropologist Dennison Nash presents a similar estimate of

when the first serious investigations of tourism emerged in the field of Anthropology. Nash

explains in the introduction to his work, Anthropology of Tourism, that there was barely any

discernible interest in anthropological study of tourism before the 1970s. Then he cites a 1988

survey of all Ph.D. dissertations presented in the 1970s and 1980s, the data suggests that not only

was the topic of tourism becoming more common in the field of anthropology during those

decades, but it was becoming a more popular topic in the field of anthropology at a relatively

swifter rate than any other social science, save economics.14 This late twentieth century genesis

moment for serious tourism studies can be explained by two factors: the emergence of a more

socially- and economically-focused approach to academic study proliferated by the Annales

School and Marxist Theory in the mid-twentieth century, and the technical fact that tourism itself

began its transformation from a comparatively anomalous and exclusive venture into an industry

of far-reaching influence during the 1960s and 1970s.

But it is important to reflect on the few studies that were published before the 1970s,

because aside from being ahead of their time, these works exemplify the first of several major 13 Erik Cohen, “The Sociology of Tourism: Approaches, Issues, and Findings,” Annual Review of Sociology 10 (1984): 373.14 Dennison Nash, Anthropology of Tourism (Kidlington, Oxford: Pergamon, 1996), 4.

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trends within the historiography of tourism studies. The initial works of academic scholarship on

tourism, ranging in publication dates from the 1930s through the late 1960s, share a fundamental

construction: the subject of tourism understood and examined as a decidedly economic

phenomenon. Sociologist Erik Cohen cites Frederic Wolff Ogilvie’s 1933 book, The Tourist

Movement: An Economic Study, as the first work in the English language to acknowledge and

analyze the social science topic of tourism.15 Ogilvie’s 1933 economic study of tourism is the

(perhaps inadvertent) predicator of a three-decade long trend in which the little work that was

being done on the subject of tourism was based heavily on economic theory and development.

Even Ogilvie acknowledges that his book is the first of its kind, stating in the Preface to his

work, “so far as I am aware, the economic aspects of short-term tourist movement have not

previously been the subject of a book, although they have begun in recent years to receive a great

deal of scattered notice from economists and statisticians, especially abroad.” His statement also

serves as an affirmation that the only academic study of the tourism movement at the time of the

book’s publication was in the fields of Economics and Statistics.16

The prevalence of economic studies of the tourism industry during the early twentieth

century is further corroborated by the publication of A. J. Norval’s 1936 economic study, The

Tourist Industry: A National and International Survey. The preface to Norval’s work expresses

similar sentiments to that of Ogilvie’s, as he opens with the statement:

The object of the inquiry, which has led to the publication of this book and which was originally undertaken purely as a matter of scientific research, but subsequently conducted on behalf of the South African Railways and Harbours, was to determine the economic significance of the tourist industry to South Africa, its relative value in the national economy, its potentialities, the possibility of its future development and the means by which and the channels through which

15 Cohen, “The Sociology of Tourism,” 373.16. Ogilvie, The Tourist Movement, vii.

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this can be accomplished in such as way as to yield the maximum benefit to the country.17

Norval’s rather verbose introductory sentence makes it abundantly clear that purpose of his work

is to present the economic benefits and development of the tourism industry in South Africa,

without even a sideways glance at any examination of the social or cultural elements of the

tourism industry on the location. Even a 1955 review of the current and previous scholarly

research on the tourism industry noted that “frequently these studies [of the tourism industry]

have originated at or have been undertaken by a bureau of business or economic research,”

exemplifying yet again the predominant trend in the mid-twentieth century to understand and

frame tourism as an economic venture.18 Studies in various disciplines continued to relegate the

subject of tourism to the realm of economic study even into the 1970s, with investigations

focused on topics such as the economic impact of the United Kingdom’s decline in small hotel

accommodations19 and the effect that the devaluation of the United Kingdom currency had on the

development pattern of tourist destinations in the late 1960s.20 The results presented and

examined in these relatively early works of tourism study largely ignore the human element of

the industry, a consequence perhaps of the overall “newness” of the tourism industry in the mid-

twentieth century and an inability to properly categorize and understand its full potential in the

fields of Sociology and Anthropology.

It wasn’t until 1976 that Dean MacCannell wrote his seminal sociological study, The

Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class, presenting theories that still mold and shape the

17 Norval, The Tourist Industry, 7.18 L. J. Crampon, “Tourist Research – A Recent Development at the Universities,” Journal of Marketing 20, no. 1 (Jul 1955): 28.19 P. Lavery, “Is the Supply of Accommodation Inhibiting the Growth of Tourism in Britain?” Area 7, no. 4 (1975): 289-296.20 Jeffrey Harrop, “On the Economics of the Tourist Boom,” Bulletin of Economic Research 25, no. 1 (May 1973): 55-73.

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conversation of sociological research on the tourism industry. One of the most important issues

that MacCannell discusses is the assumption that the broadly defined concept of tourism and its

worldly manifestation in the form of tourist activity is inherently connected to modernity, a

distinction largely unexamined in tourism literature until this point. Modernity is a simple term

that refers to the far more complex historical period characterized by the replacement of the Post-

Renaissance, traditional society with a new social order comprised of institutional, intellectual,

temporal, and spatial reorganization, or rationalization.21 MacCannell classifies tourism a

simultaneous symptom and progenitor of this modern period by claiming “the empirical and

ideological expansion of modern society to be intimately linked in diverse ways to modern mass

leisure, especially to international tourism and sight-seeing.”22 In this statement, MacCannell

clearly asserts his belief in the inherent differentiation between the simple act of travelling and

the modern manifestation of tourism. By intrinsically connecting the concept of tourism to the

framework of modernity, MacCannell set the precedent for sociological understanding of tourism

as a fundamentally modern and “new” phenomenon. Although MacCannell was one of the first

academics to address the distinction between travel and tourism in a work entirely focused on

tourism studies, Historian Daniel Boorstin also recognized the distinction between the “traveler”

and “tourist” personas, designating an entire chapter of his 1962 book, The Image: A Guide to

Pseudo-Events in America to observations of this shift from a specifically American cultural

understanding. But unlike MacCannell’s more objective representation and analysis of the

tourist, Boorstin’s designation of the tourist activity as “pseudo-event” presages the rampant

negativity projected upon the tourism industry in the late twentieth century.23

21 Ning Wang, Tourism and Modernity: Sociological Analysis (New York: Pergamon, 2000), 11.22 Dean MacCannell, The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class (New York: Schocken Books, 1976), 3.23 Daniel J. Boorstin, “From Traveler to Tourist: The Lost Art of Travel,” in The Image; or, What Happened to the American Dream, by Daniel J. Boorstin (New York: Athenaeum, 1962).

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Regardless whether tourism was presented as inherently positive or negative, widespread

acceptance of the basic distinction between traveling and tourism significantly affected the

proliferation of tourism studies, for it redefined and shifted the temporal understanding of what

constituted an act of tourism. Instead of simply serving as a synonym for travel, the words

“tourist” and “tourism” became expressions that more often than not referred directly to the

modern phenomenon of democratized “mass tourism,” a sensation that the majority of modern

academics believe manifested in the mid-twentieth century. This rearrangement (or perhaps

clarification?) of the conception date of tourism as an industry has had profound effects on the

direction that tourism studies have taken in the last forty years, particularly in the fields of

Sociology and Anthropology. Assuming that tourism was intrinsically tied to the exponential

growth and democratization of travel in the mid-twentieth century became the norm within

tourism studies of the late twentieth century, forcing authors who sought to examine tourist

activities that occurred outside the parameters of this timeline to explain their reasoning for

breaking this assumed paradigm.

Historians were the most likely academics to attempt to renegotiate this paradigm of

tourism and widen both its temporal and theoretical scope in the work posited before the new

millennium. This situation is perhaps to be expected, given that historical investigation must

necessarily consider all developmental factors associated with a topic, even or especially if the

facts do not corroborate a widely propagated Historical Narrative of tourism development.

Historian Ellen Furlough, for instance, breaks from the assumed timeline of tourism development

in her 1998 analysis of mass tourism in France between the 1930s to the 1970s. Her work

necessarily challenges the assumption that a worldwide, simultaneous development of mass

tourism only began to occur in the 1960s, for she presents evidence that the particular case of

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French mass tourism began as early as the 1930s and 1940s, due to the passage of the conges

payés (paid vacations) law of June 20, 1936 that “made vacations a political right rather than a

class privilege.”24 According to Furlough, this law provided “mass” numbers of French people

with both the means and impetus to pursue tourist activities during a period when the concept of

mass tourism was in its infancy, if a concept at all. Furlough’s research suggests a rather uneven

and irregular developmental pattern to the expansion of tourism, a thesis corroborated by József

Böröcz’s 1992 historical analysis that postulated and argued that countries of Eastern Europe

saw a substantially delayed involvement in the mass tourism movement compared to Western

Europe, echoing the similarly uneven development pattern of European industrial capitalism

between the Western and Eastern regions of Europe.25 These and similar historical investigations

into the development of the tourism industry and instances of mass tourism suggest an ongoing

dialogue in the History community concerning the definition and genesis point of the term,

“tourism,” a debate that seems to have taken a backburner to cultural, racial, and gender issues in

the wildly prolific Sociological and Anthropological studies on contemporary tourism matters.

It is difficult to say if the exponential growth of Sociological and Anthropological

tourism research can be most attributed as an inevitability of the rapidly expanding presence of

tourism activities in the modern era, or simply the result of an academia-wide acceptance of

culture, gender, and leisure studies in the 1980s and 1990s. It is far more likely that these and

numerous other factors were simultaneously involved in bringing about a dramatic increase in

academic scholarship on tourism in the late twentieth century. The bulk of these later studies

were directly impacted by the consolidation of an intellectual paradigm of tourism as a strictly

24 Ellen Furlough, “Making Mass Vacations: Tourism and Consumer Culture in France, 1930s to 1970s,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 40, no. 2 (Apr 1998): 252.25 József Böröcz, “Travel-Capitalism: The Structure of Europe and the Advent of the Tourist,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 34, no. 4 (Oct 1992): 708 – 741.

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modern, mid to late-twentieth century establishment, as stated previously. This particular

distinction seems to have contributed to the elongation of the feeling of “newness” and

experimentation in sociological and anthropological tourism studies, for even as late as 1989,

sociologist Malcolm Crick presented a study of international tourism in order to “raise the issue

of whether we yet have a respectable, scholarly analysis of tourism, or whether the social science

literature on the subject substantially blends with the emotionally charged cultural images

relating to travel and tourists.”26 Crick’s admission that there is still a lot of work to be done in

the formation of an appropriate and descriptive analysis of the tourism industry reflects the

reframing of tourist activities as an inherently modern, and therefore new, phenomenon, as well

as the difficulty inherent in describing the ever expanding and diversifying topic of tourism. But

Crick’s criticism also brings to light the tendency of some late twentieth, early twenty-first

century sociological and cultural investigations to become too “emotionally charged” in their

pursuit of an understanding of the impacts of tourism on society.

Following the incipient publication of Dean MacCannell’s The Tourist in 1976, the fields

of sociology and anthropology became inundated with investigations of the tourism industry’s

impact on many facets of the modern human experience. As stated in the previous paragraph, the

expansion of culturally and sociologically focused tourism studies coincided with an academic

renegotiation of what constituted as a “legitimate” venue of academic study, a development

commonly referred to as the “cultural turn.”27 The increased acceptance of and interest in culture

26 Malcolm Crick, “Representations of international tourism in the social sciences: sun, sex, sights, savings, and serenity,” Annual Review of Anthropology 18 (1989): 308.27 The Introduction to Victoria E. Bonnell and Lynn Hunt’s book, Beyond the Cultural Turn: New Directions in the Study of Society and Culture, provides a thorough, yet concise overview of the development and impact of the cultural turn from the mid-1970s through the late-1990s. Victoria E. Bonnell and Lynn Hunt, introduction to Beyond the Cultural Turn: New Directions in the Study of Society and Culture, ed. Victoria E. Bonnell and Lynn Hunt (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999), 1-32.

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studies as a permissible and respected thread of scholarship certainly affected the breadth of

topics explored within the genre of tourism studies, with late twentieth and early twenty-first

century cultural and sociological scholars focusing on countless subgenres within tourism

studies, from analyses on host and guest interactions, to the spatial reformation of the tourist

destination, just to name a few.28 But with the differentiation of tourism studies into more and

more specific subgenres, a fairly large and important hole in the current literature on tourism has

become apparent: sociological and anthropological studies of the impact of tourism activities on

the spatiality and native cultures of “First-World” tourist destinations.

The cultural, sociological, and political consequences of tourism development and

infiltration into regions of the “Third-World” are inflammatorily and often emotionally analyzed

and described in tourism scholarship. As Malcolm Crick’s quote alluded to earlier in this

historiography, many cultural and sociological scholars vilify the impact and development of the

tourism industry in Third-World countries, often coupling the fear of cultural imperialism and

degeneration with the cross-cultural interactions brought about by the expansion of tourism.

Most of the claims presented within these cultural studies of Third-World tourism do in fact

provide meaningful and powerful insight into the serious problems inherent in the experience of

tourism. For instance, Catherine Cocks’ 2007 sociological study of the relationship between

climate, race, and tourism addresses the salient presence of “contemporary promotional materials

28 Cara Aitchison, “Theorizing Other discourse of tourism, gender, and culture: can the subaltern speak (in tourism)?” Tourist Studies 1, no. 2 (2001): 133-147; Florence Babb, “Theorizing Gender, Race, and Cultural Tourism in Latin America: A View from Peru and Mexico,” Latin American Perspectives 39, no. 6 (2012): 36-50; Tim Edensor, “Performing tourism, staging tourism: (Re)producing tourist space and practice,” Tourist Studies 1, no. 1 (2001): 59-81; Julia Lacy and William Douglass, “Beyond Authenticity: The Meanings and Uses of Cultural Tourism,” Tourist Studies 2, no. 1 (2002): 5-21; Marion Markwick, “Malta’s Tourism Industry since 1985: Diversification, Cultural Tourism, and Sustainability,” Scottish Geographical Journal 15, no. 3 (1999): 227-247; Jarko Saarinen, “’Destinations in Change:’ The transformation process of tourist destinations,” Tourist Studies 4, no. 2 (2004): 161-179; Alicia Swords and Ronald Mize, “Beyond Tourist Gazes and Performances: U.S. Consumption of Land and Labor in Puerto Rican and Mexican Destinations,” Latin American Perspectives 35, no. 3 (2008): 53-69.

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for [warm climate] resorts still [bearing] the signs of the twentieth-century re-articulation of a

venerable climatic determinism that linked warm climates to ill-health and backward,

darkskinned people.”29 Cocks points out the unintentional and often unconscious bias inherent

within promotional literature meant to attract wealthy First World tourists to the exotic, warm

climates of Third World tourist destinations. In this study, the emphasis is not on the impact that

tourists have on the actual tourist space in these Third World countries, but rather how the

promotional materials for these destinations perpetuate incorrect and unfair racial and cultural

stereotypes on a more theoretical level. This and similar studies that aim to generate dialogue and

affect a change in the way that race and cultural issues are approached within the realm of

tourism hold an immensely important position within the academic world’s renegotiation of race,

class, and cultural issues.

However, the troubling lack in abundance of similarly intuitive and emotional

sociological and cultural investigations of tourism’s impact on First World destinations, may be

inadvertently contributing to the continued cultural and social gaps between the study and

framing of the experiences of Third World and First World inhabitants. I was able to locate a

selection of scholarly examinations of the tourism industry in the United Kingdom, and they

largely support this observation concerning the content of academic investigations of First World

tourism culture. John Urry’s 1991 sociological article, “Holiday-Making in Britain since 1945,”

spends a decent amount of his precious page space presenting economic and statistical data

concerning the spread of particular conventions in the tourism industry. And rather than musing

over how the tourism industry has affected the culture of Great Britain, Urry seems to subscribes

to the impression of reality in which the concept of tourism is only a force that can be acted upon

29 Catherine Cocks, “The Pleasures of Degeneration: Climate, Race, and the Origins of the Global Tourist,” Discourses 29, no. 2&3 (2007): 215.

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and not an impressionable force in its own right. The final sentence of Urry’s investigation

confirms his belief in this malleable and ineffectual understanding of tourism within this First

World environment, stating that “one might thus in conclusion summarise the changes in the

post-war period as involving shifts from the ‘seaside to sun-worship’ and from ‘holiday camps to

heritage-history!”30 This concluding sentence implies that the travellers in post-war Britain were

actively choosing and altering the popular aesthetic of tourist activities, while any inquiry into

the way that these and other forms of tourism have conversely affected the very culture of the

British people is completely absent. Michael Clancy’s 2011 examination of the changing

geography of tourism in Ireland is another perfect example of the unintentional omission of

sociological and cultural implications of tourism on the host communities. Clancy examines the

change in the Irish tourism industry overtime, but chooses to focus his work on the “trajectory of

the Irish hotel sector, and examining both the changing geography of overseas tourist origins and

the internal distribution of tourism within Ireland.”31 A topic that, scrutinized through the lens of

a Third World destination, would be rife with cultural and racial commentary on tourism’s

impact on the local inhabitants, is instead examined by Clancy as a systematic and statistical

circumstance contributing to the increase and decrease in economic prosperity. The exclusion of

meaningful examinations of the cultural implications of the tourism industry in Ireland is

particularly poignant when compared to another investigation undertaken on the economic

impact of the tourism industry, this time in Mexico.

Tamar Wilson’s 2008 anthropological article on Mexico’s tourism industry examines the

economic development of the system, but also spends the last portion of her work assessing

30 John Urry, “Holiday-Making in Britain since 1945,” Contemporary Record: The Journal of the Institute of Contemporary British History 5, no. 1 (1991), 42.31 Michael Clancy, “Boom, bust, and the changing geography of Irish tourism,” Irish Geography 44, no. 2&3 (2011): 173.

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“some of the costs of tourism development for the working class.”32 Although by no means an

unprecedented line of inquiry, the combined focus on economic and social factors in this

Mexico-centered work speaks more to the almost obligatory need to address social and cultural

impacts in studies of Third World destinations, a pressure clearly not felt when authoring an

investigation of the First World. To pursue an investigation into the social and cultural impacts

of tourism in First World countries is vastly important, especially today, in order to determine an

accurate understanding of the tourism industry and its impact. But at a far more human level,

increased and intensified examinations of the native populations and identities of First World

locations is paramount, if only to further highlight the inherent bias and racism still insidious

within the presentation and understanding of the world’s tourism industries. But some of the

recent tourism literature does hint at a reevaluation of blatant omissions and discontinuities in

tourism research, perhaps leading to yet another shift in the paradigm of tourism studies towards

a more self-aware and self-reflective examination of tourism.

Recent articles written on the tourism industry have presented reevaluations and re-

conceptualizations of long trusted theories that are in desperate need of updating. These articles

span the breadth of the tourism studies subgenres, with reexaminations of the concept of the host

and guest dynamic,33 the perception of Otherness,34 and even a new interpretation of the concept

of “mass” tourism.35 Although not necessarily paradigm bending at this point, these

reinterpretations of prominent concepts, particularly in the fields of sociology and anthropology,

will undoubtedly bring about more questions than answers, opening the door for new methods of

32 Tamar Wilson, “Economic and Social Impacts of Tourism in Mexico,” Latin American Perspectives 35, no. 3 (2008): 38. 33 Kristy Sherlock, “Revisiting the concept of hosts and guests,” Tourist Studies 1, no. 3 (2001): 271-295. 34 Noel Salazar, “Imagineering Otherness: Anthropological Legacies in Contemporary Tourism,” Anthropological Quarterly 86, no. 3 (Summer 2013): 669-696.35 Vilhelmiina Vainikka, “Rethinking Mass Tourism,” Tourist Studies 13, no. 3 (2013): 268-286.

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research and a widening of the parameters for what is considered a legitimate source of

information. It is within this new wave of tourism studies that this thesis’ subject matter of

tourism guidebooks receives increased legitimacy and respect.

Investigations using tourism guidebooks as an important or even central source of

information have been conducted in greater frequency in the last few years, signifying an

acceptance of guidebooks as not only an appropriate medium for study, but also a container of a

wealth of information regarding the social, spatial, and cultural conduct of the tourist in a

particular destination. The guidebooks in these choice studies suggest that there is more

information to be gained from this particular subcategory of travel literature about a tourist

destination’s identity and culture than might be immediately apparent. Alison Phipps and Gavin

Jack conducted a ethnographic study of travel guides used by German tourists visiting Scotland,

and solidly justified the relevance of the guidebook in academic study, “suggesting that travel

guides perform important ontological as well as epistemological roles for tourists and that as an

artifact of modern culture, their use can also be interpreted in liminal terms when articulated

against the wider connections between Modernity, life and death.”36 This niche of tourism studies

suggests that more culturally focused investigations of even the most established First World

tourist destinations are becoming a reality.

In fact, many of the guidebook-centered investigations of tourism have used the materials

specifically crafted for navigating the city of London as their primary focus. While these

investigations have provided insightful and innovative interpretations of London’s culture within

the framework of the tourism industry, these works primarily focus on the presentation of

London culture in the guidebooks of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Paul

36 Gavin Jack and Alison Phipps, “On the uses of travel guides in the context of German tourism in Scotland,” Tourist Studies 3, no. 3 (2003), 281.

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Dobraszczyk specifically limits his historical article to the information presented in nineteenth

century guidebooks to London,37 while art historian Elizabeth McKellar focuses her article on the

earliest predecessors of the modern tourism guidebook, choosing to examine London and

Parisian guidebooks in the 1650 – 1730 time period.38 And although David Gilbert claims in the

abstract to his 1999 historical article that he is “[tracing] changing representations of London in

its tourist literature from mid-Victorian triumphalism to the city’s re-invention at the end of the

twentieth century as a postimperial spectacle,”39 I do not think that packing all of his

observations of the post-war guidebooks to London into the last two paragraphs of his work

constitutes a comprehensive look at the entire spectrum of guidebook development between the

nineteenth and late twentieth centuries.

My investigation will not only further articulate the relevance of the tourism guidebook

genre within academic study, but also present a complete longitudinal look at the cultural impact

of the development of the modern tourism industry and its companion, the tourist guidebook, in

London, England, which seems to be missing in the current dialogue on tourism studies. I also

hope to fill in some of the gaps in the academic record regarding the social and cultural impact of

tourism on the spatialization, understanding, and identity of the city of London, England as a

First World, and highly attractive, tourist destination.

37 Paul Dobraszcyk, “City Reading: The Design and Use of Nineteenth-Century London Guidebooks,” Journal of Design History 25, no. 2 (2012): 123-144.38 Elizabeth McKellar, “Tales of Two Cities: Print and Early Guidebooks to Paris and London,” Humanities 2 (2013): 328-350.39 David Gilbert, “’London in all its glory – or how to enjoy London’: guidebook representations of imperial London,” Journal of Historical Geography 25, no. 3 (1999), 279.

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CHAPTER IIGuidebook Genesis: Antecedents and Progenitors

This chapter details the personal contributions of Karl Baedeker and John Murray within

the genesis story of the tourism guidebook genre, as well as the proliferation of each guidebook

series’ popularity between the nineteenth and twenty first century. Following this general

overview of the development and impact of the two competing guidebook-publishing houses, a

more specific examination of early guidebook development for London, England will be

presented. While the creation of the identifiably modern guidebook format and layout has been

attributed to the mid to late nineteenth century, the specific choices made in regards to content

and presentation within these early guidebooks have their roots in much earlier traditions of

travel, in particular the European “Grand Tour.” The carry-over of priorities manifest in this elite

tradition bears especial importance on the development of early guidebooks to London, as this

city was marked as one of the major cultural attractions along this Tour. London’s entrenchment

in this early form of travel and tourism has decisively affected the general development pattern

of tourism to this city, in addition to highly influencing the presentation of the city within the

associated travel guide materials. An examination of the origins of the guidebook genre and the

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unmistakable influence of the Grand Tour on the format and presentation of early guidebooks to

London must be preformed before undertaking any analysis on the content, language, and

packaging of London identity within the Baedeker and Murray guidebook series.

Creating a Genre: Baedeker, Murray, and the “Modern” Guidebook Format

The tourism guidebook represents a subcategory of the much larger and more broadly

inclusive genre of travel writing. Most present day dictionaries provide a definition for the term

“guidebook” that mirrors the one supplied by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary: “a book of

information for travelers.”40 But a more definitive description of a guidebook would include

reference to the genre’s logical and simplistic presentation, the incorporation of only the most

relevant information on food, lodging, travel, and tourism sites, and the ubiquitous inclusion of a

spatial orientation of the city, whether it manifest in map or prose format. This literary genre,

now common in the modern world, has its origins in the nineteenth century, a time during which

the motivation to travel for leisure was just starting to become both appealing and accessible.

The German publisher Karl Baedeker and English publisher John Murray were both major

figures in the expansion and proliferation of the tourism guidebook genre during their careers in

the early and mid nineteenth century. But before a proper examination of these two men’s

contributions can be presented, it is important to first recognize the roots of the guidebook genre

evident in the works by travelers and travel writers that pre-date Baedeker and Murray.

Individuals like John Ruskin and Thomas Babington Macaulay began documenting their

observations and basic guidance at the turn of the nineteenth century. Although they did not

employ the now traditional guidebook template, the descriptive work that these two men did

within the genre of travel literature provided a necessary and important basis on which the

40 "Guidebook." Merriam-Webster.com. Accessed November 10, 2014. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/guidebook.

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guidebook format could be built. But when it comes to the original inspiration and

implementation of the modern guidebook format and layout, it is not Baedeker and Murray that

are to be commended, but a young female writer, Mariana Starke.

Starke was an English author born in 1761, publishing her first groundbreaking

guidebook, Letters from Italy,41 in 1800, more than three decades before either Baedeker or

Murray published their guidebooks. Her books were actively used and referenced by the likes of

Ruskin and Macaulay as they traveled throughout Europe, and Murray was so inspired by

Starke’s original template that his publishing house printed her 1828 guidebook, Travels in

Europe Between the Years 1824 and 1828.42 You can easily guess what happened after this

publication, as one tourism scholar puts it so aptly, “[Murray] used her format closely enough

almost to the point of plagiarism.”43 Many of the formatting conventions employed by and

largely credited to both Murray and Baedeker were actually first presented within the pages of

Mariana Starke’s guidebook series.

Baedeker’s acclaimed innovation of using asterisks to mark important sites is an example

of a guidebook convention that can be traced back to Starke’s grading system, which employed

the use of exclamation marks to signify sites of relative importance. Starke is almost certainly the

inventor of this typographical rating system for tourist sites and attractions, which is now

commonly employed in the ratings of modern-day restaurants and hotels.44 She employs here

41 Mariana Starke, Letters from Italy, between the years 1792 and 1798, containing Views of the Revolutions in that country, from the Capture of Nice by the French Republic to the Expulsion of Pius VI, from the Ecclesiastical State… (London: T. Gillet, for R. Phillips, 1800).42 Mariana Starke, Travels in Europe Between the Years 1824 and 1828, adapted to the Use of Travellers, comprising an Historical Account of Sicily, with particular information for strangers to that island (London: John Murray, 1828).43 David M. Bruce, “The nineteenth-century ‘golden age’ of cultural tourism: How the beaten track of the intellectuals became the modern tourist trail,” in The Routledge Handbook of Cultural Tourism, ed. Melanie Smith and Greg Richards (New York: Routledge, 2013). 44 Jeanne Moskal, “Introduction to Mariana Starke’s The Sword of Peace; or, A Voyage of Love (1788),” British Women Playwrights around 1800 (15 January 2000), accessed December 8, 2014,

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innovative ranking system as early as her debut guidebook from 1800, Letters from Italy. Her

rating system is evidenced in her ranking of various paintings that adorn the walls of one of the

Vatican’s Raphael Rooms, using more exclamations points to signify the most important works

of art: “Third room – The School of Athens, by Raffaelle !!!! – Theology, by the same !! –

Parsassus, by the same !! – Jurisprudence, by the same !!”45 Starke employed her exclamation

point rating system consistently from her first publication in 1800 to her ninth and last edition of

her guidebook, Travels in Europe,46 in 1839. In comparison, Baedeker did not initially introduce

his famed star rating system into his own guidebooks until 1844. This major innovation has been

substantially integrated into the format and expectations of modern guidebooks, demonstrating

just one of many attributes of Starke’s travel books that still echoes within the guidebook

publications of the nineteenth, twentieth, and even twenty first centuries.

But one of the most groundbreaking legacies of Starke’s guidebooks is the deliberate

shift in audience. Instead of preparing a book for a stationary, homebound audience, she crafted a

source specifically “for the use of Travellers on the Continent.”47 Her guidebook format and

presentation paved the way for the instructional and informational guidebooks later perfected and

distributed by publishing giants, Baedeker and Murray. Sadly, Starke’s work and whatever

reputation they had accumulated fell into relative obscurity after her death in 1838, but her

innovations were carried on through the works of Baedeker and Murray.48 So while Baedeker

and Murray were certainly not the originators or even initial implementers of the modern tourism

http://www.etang.umontreal.ca/bwp1800/essays/moskal_sword_intro.html.45 Mariana Starke, Letters from Italy, 5.46 Mariana Starke, Travels in Europe, for the use of Travellers on the Continent, and Likewise in the Island of Sicily; not comprised in any of the former editions. To which is added an account of the remains of Ancient Italy, and also of the roads leading to those remains (Paris: A. and W. Galignani and Co., 1839).47 [Italics added for emphasis] Starke, Travels in Europe, i. 48 Jeanne Moskal, “Introduction to Mariana Starke’s The Sword of Peace; or, A Voyage of Love (1788),”

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guidebook format, they can be credited with the significant expansion of the tourism guidebook

industry and its immersion into the framework of the tourist imagination. And as contemporaries

in the same burgeoning field, Baedeker and Murray frequently crossed paths during the mid

nineteenth century, with varying levels of success for each of them.

Born in 1801, Germany native Karl Baedeker is arguably the more recognizable of the

two men, with Baedeker’s trusted name adorning the cover of guidebooks long after his death.

The Baedeker brand has been a long-standing and influential staple of the guidebook genre,

beginning with the publication of the 1828 travel book, Rheinreise von Mainz bis Köln.49

Baedeker did not personally edit this first guidebook, or even originally publish it; rather it was

an inherited work he acquired from the Franz Friedrich Röhling publishing house he took over in

1832.50 Rheinreise von Mainz bis Köln was also more of a scholarly survey of the Rhine region

than a definitive guidebook. What the work did provide was the basic information, modest

template, and reasonable excuse for Baedeker to enter the world of guidebook editing and

publication, releasing his own heavily revised edition of the 1828 guidebook in 1839.51 But

where Baedeker obtained his most influential and successful inspiration for his first edited

guidebook was from within the pages of his young contemporary’s first venture into the

guidebook writing genre, John Murray’s 1836 guidebook publication, Handbook for Travellers

on the Continent: Being a guide through Holland, Belgium, Prussia, and Northern Germany and

along the Rhine, from Holland to Switzerland.52

49 Johann August Klein, Rheinreise von Mainz bis Köln (Colbenz: Röhling, 1828).50 W. B. Lister and M. R. Wild, “The Baedeker-Murray Correspondence,” in Baedekeriana: an Anthology, ed. Michael Wild ([Great Britain]: The Red Scar Press, 2010), 40.51 Baedeker still credited Professor Johann August Klein as the author of the heavily revised 1839 edition of the guidebook, although even the title was different from the original 1828 publication. Johann August Klein, Rheinreise von Strassburg bis Düsseldorf (Colbenz: Karl Baedeker, 1839).52 J. Murray, Handbook for Travellers on the Continent: Being a guide through Holland, Belgium, Prussia, and Northern Germany and along the Rhine, from Holland to Switzerland (London: J. Murray, 1836).

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John Murray was born in England in 1808, and his introduction into the realm of travel

guidebook writing began as a personal project to document his notes on, and recommended

routes through, the European Continent in the aftermath of his own travels to the region. In the

preface to the first edition of his guidebook, Handbook for Travellers to the Continent, he states

his reasoning for publishing the work as follows:

In the course of repeated journeys and of occasional residences in various parts of the Continent, he not only traversed beaten routes, but visited many spots to which his countrymen rarely penetrate. Thus his materials have largely accumulated; and in the hope that they may prove of as much service to the public generally, as he is assured they already have to private friends, he is now induced to put them forth in a printed form.53

His personal connection to the creation of this particular guidebook is clear, and the choices he

made in arranging and presenting the information within the work is reflective of the comments

received from his acquaintances, as well as a reaction to the lack luster collection of works that

were being disseminated as guidebooks at the time. Murray further explains in the Preface to his

first guidebook that “most of the Guide Books hitherto published are either general descriptions

compiled by persons not acquainted with the spots, and are therefore imperfect and erroneous, or

are local histories, written by residents who do not sufficiently discriminate between what is

peculiar to the place, and what is not worth seeing, or may be seen equally well or to greater

advantage somewhere else.”54 His decision to organize his guidebook based on appropriate and

convenient routes, bolstered by concise and informative descriptions of the sights that ought to

be seen in each location, appears to be the direct result of his negative opinion of the guidebooks

already in circulation in the early nineteenth century. Murray’s work to better the format and

53 John Murray, Preface to the First Edition in A Hand-Book for Travellers on the Continent, by John Murray (London: John Murray and Son, 1838), v.54 Murray, Preface, v.

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presentation of guidebooks was clearly noticed and approved, as Baedeker implemented similar

strategies within his own early guidebook publications not five years later.

During the production of these very early publications, it is apparent that a professional

relationship had developed between the two publishers that appeared quite amicable. Baedeker

borrowed heavily from Murray’s early guidebooks, copying many of Murray’s style and

formatting conventions in his own guidebook publications, and perhaps most notably, the

adoption of the term Handbook as a descriptor in the titles of his guidebooks.55 But these

additions were not made without recognition, for Baedeker acknowledged his indebtedness to

Murray’s innovations within the preface to one of his original guidebooks from 1839, Holland:

Handbüchlein für Reisende. His statement of appreciation: “Aus Grundlage hat diesem

Werkchen das ausgezeichnetste Reisehandbuch welches je erschienen ist gedient ‘Murray

Handbook for Travellers on the Continent,’”56 was later translated by Murray’s son, John Murray

IV, in an 1887 journal article. John Murray IV professed that in this prose, Baedeker was stating

his obligation to “the most distinguished (ausgezeichnetste) Guide-book ever published,

“Murray’s Handbook for Travellers,” which has served as the foundation of Baedeker’s little

book.”57 The friendliness of this working relationship might have still been questioned, had it not

been for Murray’s agreement to jointly publish the first Baedeker English-language guide, The

Rhine, From Switzerland to Holland: Handbook for Travellers, in 1861.58 While this cooperative

endeavor proves Murray’s commitment to a supportive and cordial rapport with Baedeker the

man, the Baedeker firm’s not so subtle incursion into the English-language market symbolizes

55 Edward Mendelson, “Baedeker’s Universe,” Yale Review 74, no. 3 (Spring 1985): 386-403.56 Karl Baedeker, Holland: Handbüchlein für Reisende (Coblenz: Baedeker, 1839).57 John Murray IV, “The Origin and History of Murray’s Handbooks for Travellers,” in John Murray III, 1808 – 1892: A Brief Memoir, ed. John Murray IV (New York: Fred A. Knopf, 1920), 46. 58 K. Baedeker, The Rhine, From Switzerland to Holland: Handbook for Travellers (Coblenz: K. Baedeker, 1861).

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the decline of the Murray guidebook enterprise in the wake of the expanding Baedeker

guidebook empire.

Up until the 1861 release of Baedeker’s English-language guidebook, the two publishing

firms were still competitors, but able to stake out their own niche within the guidebook industry.

While Baedeker catered heavily to the German-speaking demographic and provided a fair

amount of French-language guidebooks as well, Murray was firmly entrenched in the market of

English-language guidebooks. This inadvertent, but convenient, arrangement was probably one

of the major factors allowing both publishers to thrive within the guidebook industry during the

mid nineteenth century, while maintaining at least a superficially courteous and cooperative

working relationship. But even before Baedeker ventured into the publication of English-

language guidebooks, the Baedeker publishing firm seemed to be distancing itself from the

shadow of Murray’s influence. In the 1853 preface to his handbook, Die Schweiz, Baedeker

continues to admit that Murray’s guidebooks were inspiration for the framework of his own

guidebooks, but also takes full responsibility for the content and inherent “German” style of the

work, stating, “die Grundlage bildet auch hier Murray’s berühmtes reishandbuch; es war indess

nur der Rahmen, in welchen die jetzt ausschliesslich eigenthümliche deutsche Arbeit eingefugt

wurde.”59 Baedeker deliberately separates himself even further from Murray’s preemptory use of

the modern guidebook template in 1855, when he relates in the preface to his Belgien Handbuch

that in the wake of his own extensive travel and years of updating and editing the template for his

guides, one can barely recognize the original “British” format of Murray’s. Baedeker claims that

59 K. Baedeker, Die Schweiz. Handbuch für Reisende, nach eigener Anschauung und den besten Hülfsquellen bearbeitet (Coblenz: K. Baedeker, 1853), VI. [Rough translation of quotation: “The basis here is Murray’s famous guidebook; it, however, was only the frame, in which the now exclusively peculiar to German work was pasted.” Google Translate.]

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“das Büchlein darf jetzt ohne Unbescheidenheit auf Selbstständigkeit Anspruch machen.”60

Although by no means hostile, Baedeker’s decision to distance himself from Murray’s original

publications makes it clear that at least Baedeker is confident in his ability to take the concept of

a guidebook and craft it as his own.

It seems that Baedeker’s confidence in his own craft was well founded, as he consistently

executed the same strategies in format and content as the Murray Guidebooks, just more

successfully. As previously mentioned, Baedeker “borrowed” from Murray the practice of

calling the guide publications Handbooks, a convention that successfully encompassed the

burgeoning genre’s helpful nature and transportable size. And while there appears to be some

debate among Baedeker guidebook scholars concerning when the now famous red cloth was

introduced by Baedeker to cover his guidebooks,61 this innovation from either the 1840s or 1850s

(another design that was most likely the original brainchild of John Murray) became

synonymous with the Baedeker guidebook. Such an iconic piece of the guidebook presentation

most certainly had an effect on the reputation of the Murray guidebooks as the Baedeker firm

spread its influence into the English-language market, for Murray guidebooks were also being

published with the red cloth that became an industry standard by the 1860s. But perhaps most

importantly, Baedeker promoted and maintained a reputation for personally checking and vetting

60 K. Baedeker, Belgien. Handbuch für Reisende, nach eigener Anschauung und den besten Hülfsquellen bearbeitet (Coblenz: K. Baedeker, 1855), III. [Rough translation of quotation: “The booklet may now claim with immodesty on independence.”] Google Translate.] 61 W. B. Lister and M. R. Wild claim in their chapter, “The Baedeker-Murray Correspondence,” in Baedekeriana: an Anthology that the red cover was adopted by Baedeker in 1856, while the convention was used by Murray almost from the beginning. Edward Mendelsohn claims in his article, “Baedeker’s Universe,” that Karl Baedeker actually began using the red cover in 1846, a practice that was only adopted by Murray after the fact. However, I am more inclined to believe that John Murray at least initially employed the use of a red cover, if not popularized it, for in John Murray IV’s article from The Quarterly Review, “The Origin and History of Murray’s Handbooks for Travellers,” Murray cites that Baedeker introduced his 1842 guide to Germany by referring to “Murray’s Red Book,” an adjective Baedeker would have been unlikely to use, had he been the originator of the red cover convention. John Murray IV, “The Origin and History of Murray’s Handbooks for Travellers,” 47.

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the sights he presented within his guidebooks. This practice not only guaranteed a high-quality

product, but also resulted in the very name Baedeker being synonymous with meticulousness and

accuracy, a happenstance which certainly helped in the promotion and proliferation of the brand

even after the death of the founding figure, Karl Baedeker, in 1859. Even as late as 1929, Karl

Baedeker’s reputation for thoroughness was still being recycled in popular culture, with A.P.

Herbert writing into his English libretto for J. Offenbach’s operetta La Vie Parisienne, “Kings

and governments may err, but never Mr. Baedeker.”62 While Murray was also very meticulous in

the collection and presentation of information within his own guidebooks, by the late nineteenth

century, the sheer number of Baedeker guidebooks being published in a variety of languages and

about a plethora of locations were substantially flooding the guidebook market, leading to the

eventual folding of the Murray Handbook enterprise in the first decade of the twentieth century.

Following the demise of its primary competitor, the Baedeker publishing house had an

almost monopolistic hold on the guidebook market until the end of World War II. The Baedeker

brand lost some favor in the eyes of the American, British, and other consumers because of the

apparent complicity of the guidebook publisher with the German cause, as the company

published several guidebooks to occupied zones that were bordering on propaganda. The

publishing of Baedeker guidebooks out of their Leipzig publishing house was also literally halted

in the aftermath of the war, due to air raids to the city. The guidebook series was able to execute

a sizable comeback during the mid to late twentieth century, but the Baedeker guidebooks never

regained their seemingly uncontestable hold on the guidebook industry that they once had in the

late nineteenth century.63

62 As quoted in Iain Bamforth, “Going by the book: the Baedeker guide,” The British Journal of General Practice 60, no. 581 (Dec 2010): 947.63 Mark D. Larabee, “Baedekers as Casualty: Great War Nationalism and the Fate of Travel Writing,” Journal of the History of Ideas 71, no. 3 (July 2010): 457 – 480.

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The trajectory of the Murray guidebook concept following the termination of its original

publication line is also a tale of redemption. In 1915, brothers James and Findlay Muirhead,

former editors for the English-language Baedeker guidebook series, acquired the rights to the

Murray Handbooks and established their own run of guidebooks based on the reputation and

presentation that the original publications fostered in the mid nineteenth century. Although a

similar presentation style and formatting was maintained between the original Murray

Handbooks and the newly minted guidebooks of the Muirhead brothers, the Murray name was

removed entirely from the franchise and reestablished as the Blue Guides.64Even though the

original Murray Handbooks and the Murray name were unable to endure through to the present

period, the Handbooks’ successor brand, the Blue Guides, has been consistently publishing

guidebooks for destinations around the world; ever since the publication of their first guidebook

in 1918, Blue Guide London and its Environs.65

Creating an Industry: The “Grand Tour,” Guidebooks, and London, England

Now that the origins of the modern tourism guidebook format and the contributions made

by both Karl Baedeker and John Murray in this effort have been elucidated, it is important to tie

these guidebooks back into a discussion of their primary purpose: the provision of insight and

advice concerning the navigation of a largely unknown travel destination. As the historiography

portion of in this thesis suggests, instances of tourism did not just spontaneously originate in the

mid 1960s, but rather, the attributes of the now quite common tourism industry have numerous

antecedents that inform the focus and structure of the tourist experience, especially in the case of

tourist activities in London, England. It is therefore necessary to define and comprehend the

64 Michael Hall, “The relaunch of the famous Blue Guide series prompted Michael Hall to compare its modernized and redesigned guide to Florence with the dizzying array of guidebooks to the city: does the classic still hold its own?” Apollo 162 no. 522 (Aug 2005): 62.65 Findlay Muirhead, The Blue Guides: London and its Environs (London: MacMillan and Co. Ltd., 1918).

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predominance of the European “Grand Tour” in the late seventeenth through the early nineteenth

century, and how this tradition has had reverberating effects on the presentation of tourism in the

city of London.

Within the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Grand Tour is broadly described as a “rite of

passage for aristocratic young men” of the eighteenth century, characterized by “three or four

years of travel around Europe and included an extensive sojourn in Italy, as Rome was

considered the ultimate destination for what might now be characterized as cultural tourism.”66 It

is commonly understood that this journey was meant to be an edifying experience, a chance to

broaden the horizons of the (commonly British and French) young men through a combined

liberal education of art, culture, history, and language. Although there seem to have been several

“standard” routes to follow along this Tour,67 alterations and adjustments to these routes would

be dependent on the temperament of the individual and his country of origin, but all invariably

included a respite in the cultural mecca of Rome. This broad understanding of the Grand Tour

speaks more to the popularized concept of the practice rather than its reality, a distinction that

several academics have made clear through their research that suggests that there are far more

exceptions to this representation than confirmations of it.

The first of these generalities to be debunked is the Grand Tour’s classification as an

exclusively aristocratic endeavor. Historian John Towner presents evidence in his 1985 article on

the history of the Grand Tour that addresses contradictions to the romanticized understanding of

the journey’s demographics. In a study of 151 Grand Tours documented between the mid

66 Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s. v. "art market", accessed November 11, 2014, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1557506/art-market.67 Historian Jeremy Black provides a detailed description and breakdown of the typical route followed by a British traveler on a mid-eighteenth century Grand Tour. The subsection “Itinerary” within the first chapter of his book, The British and the Grand Tour, is particularly fascinating, as he infuses his narrative of the Grand Tour journey with the comments and experiences of actual eighteenth century travelers. Jeremy Black, The British and the Grand Tour (London: Croom Helm, 1985), 1-25.

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seventeenth and mid nineteenth centuries, Towner found that only 16.6 percent of the

participants were identified members of the aristocracy. Instead, the vast majority of Grand Tour

takers, at least those documented in the 151 cases, were representative of the gentry, clergy,

professional and merchant classes.68 This definition-breaking data justifies historian József

Böröcz’s observation that “singling out the (British male) aristocracy as the only source of

world-wide cultural patterns regarding contemporary travel appears arbitrary.”69 Böröcz could

have easily substituted the word “arbitrary” with the seemingly more apt expression “historically

inaccurate.” But his acknowledgement that the popular framing of the aristocratic Grand Tour is

a bit of a myth does not lessen the impact that this misrepresented practice had on the collective

memory of tourism development on the European continent. Even contemporaries of the Grand

Tour era, accepting this understanding of the Grand Tour as inherently elitist and exclusionary,

altered the course of tourism development with their attempts to counter this illusory and partisan

practice.

Thomas Cook, often described as the “father of modern mass tourism,”70 seems to have

been directly influenced by the exclusive and unattainable nature of the travel and tourism

manifest in the Grand Tour paradigm. Cook’s now infamous company, Thomas Cook & Son (or

Cook’s Tours), provided economical and inclusive group tours for a primarily British clientele

starting in the mid nineteenth century. Cook began with smaller day trips around the United

Kingdom in the 1840s, and by the 1860s the company was ushering reasonably cost-effective

group tours around much of Europe, Egypt, and even to the United States. As all matters of

room, board, and navigation were the responsibility of Cook’s Tours, and because this endeavor 68 John Towner, “The Grand Tour: A Key Phase in the History of Tourism,” Annals of Tourism Research 12, no. 3 (1985), 305-308.69Böröcz, “Travel Capitalism,” 712.70 Velvet Nelson, An Introduction to the Geography of Tourism (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2013), 80.

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was such a success, considering Cook a leading figure in the spread of the mass tourism practices

characterized by the “packaged tour” is certainly reasonable. Almost more importantly, however,

is the fact that Cook’s impetus to provide travel arrangements for the less well off seems to have

been a direct reaction to the apparent exclusion of the working class from the Grand Tour

experience. Cook differentiates himself even further from the Grand Tour tradition when he

begins the publication of his own line of tourism guidebooks in the mid nineteenth century,

deliberately marketing his publications towards a “broader and less sophisticated middle-class

audience” that was not being catered to by the Baedeker and Murray Guides (each reminiscent of

the Grand Tour in their own right).71

The Cook Tours, and the advice offered within his guides for the more independent

tourist, also break away from the paradigm of extended sojourns in each travel destination.

Tourists following a Cook itinerary were far more likely to be experiencing the shorter,

highlights only, variety of tourism, spending only a few days to a week in each location. This

highlights-only method of tourism is best exemplified in Thomas Cook’s first organized world

tour that began in September 1872. Cook and a small number of fellow tourists spent 222 days

traveling quite literally around the world, with an itinerary that consisted of the following travel

arrangements: a crossing of the Atlantic Ocean from Leicester, England to New York City, travel

by rail to San Francisco, a steam engine trip to Japan, travel through China, Singapore, Ceylon

and India, a crossing of both the Indian Ocean and Red Sea to Cairo, Egypt, followed by an

“extended” tour of Egypt and Palestine, before finally heading back to England by way of

Turkey, Greece, Italy, and France. 72 Thomas Cook was only away from home for 222 days, an

71 Rudy Koshar, “’What Ought to Be Seen’: Tourists’ Guidebooks and National Identities in Modern Germany and Europe,” Journal of Contemporary History 33, no. 3 (1998): 330.72 “Thomas Cook History,” Thomas Cook, accessed November 12, 2014, http://www.thomascook.com/thomas-cook-history/.

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amazing feat in tourism compression when compared to the nearly three years many young men

would spend just exploring the key cities of Western Europe. Although the development and

modernization of the more efficient transportation methods of train and steam engine certainly

made Cook’s traveling less arduous and time consuming, spending less than a year traveling the

world, no matter how fast the transportation, represents the inception of the new, short term

tourism experience.

While the affects on the London tourism industry of both the “Grand Tour” legacy and

the work of those attempting to break it down are substantial, the initiation of a guidebook series

specifically for the city of London has also had lasting impact on its identity within the tourism

framework. Because London is such a popular city amongst tourists, and has been since the

beginning of the institution of the guidebook format in the early nineteenth century, there have

been a plethora of handbooks written specifically for the city itself. While many of the very first

guidebooks were more regional or country-based descriptions and navigations, like Murray’s

1836 Handbook for Travellers on the Continent and Baedeker’s 1839 Rheinreise von Strassburg

bis Düsseldorf, the city of London proved so significant even in this early period that the

publishers felt it prudent to issue specific guides to the city of London. This reality is

substantiated by the fact that London was the very first city Murray honored with its own

specific guidebook series, initiating the publication of his London guidebook series with the

publication of A Handbook to London, Past and Present in 1849.73 Murray went on to publish

seven more editions and revisions of his guidebooks to London before even initiating his

subsequent city-specific guidebooks series to Rome in 1858.74 And where the English-language

Baedeker guidebooks are concerned, only the city of Paris was given its own guidebook series 73 Peter Cunningham, A Handbook for London, Past and Present (London: John Murray, 1849).74 W. B. C. Lister, A Bibliography of Murray’s Handbooks for Travellers and Biographies of Authors, Editors, Revisers, and Principal Contributors (Dereham: Dereham Books, 1993).

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before the firm began its publication of London guidebooks, with the first guide to Paris released

in 1865 and Baedeker’s first handbook to London published in 1878. It is interesting to note that

both of these series even preceded the first English-language guidebook to a city in Baedeker’s

homeland, as his guidebook to Berlin was not published until 1903.75 Although Baedeker had

been publishing guidebooks to the general Rhine region since he infiltrated the English-language

guidebook market in 1861,76 the late publication date of his Berlin specific work suggests that

Baedeker was aware that the draw of this German city within the English-speaking population

was just not as strong during this period as it was for the cosmopolitan city of London.

Furthermore, the fact that these guidebooks publishers were even willing to risk valuable time

and money to research, print, and distribute these specific guides to London in the mid to late

nineteenth century suggests that not only was the city’s reputation and appeal already firmly

ingrained in the imagination of the contemporary population, but that this was a destination that

people were willing to travel to as tourists. The analysis of these nineteenth century guidebooks

to London, in addition to their descendants through the twenty-first century, will be performed in

the next chapter.

75 Baedeker’s Handbook(s) for Travellers: A bibliography of English editions published prior to World War II (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press Inc., 1976).76 As previously discussed, Baedeker’s The Rhine from Switzerland to Holland was the first English-language guidebook published by the Baedeker firm, released in 1861.

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CHAPTER IIILONDON AS TOURIST DESTINATION

This chapter examines the content, presentation, and geographical spacing of the city of

London within the Baedeker, Murray, and Blue Guides guidebook series to London. The

discussion will not only examine how the guidebooks represent the identity of the city within its

bindings, but also how the shaping of the tourist experience by these works has impacted the

self-image that the city autonomously generates for itself. This analysis should also help

elucidate how the tourism “culture” has permeated the everyday understanding of what the city

of London is and represents as an entity in its own right. How these books choose to frame and

present the city, and towards whom they are directing their efforts, is therefore of intrinsic

importance to the larger study of tourism development in London and worldwide. The guidebook

genre professes to provide the reader with an accurate representation of the tourist destination

and its numerous amusements and amenities; while also highlighting only “the best” aspects of

what the location has to offer. This framing is, of course, very important in the production of a

city-wide identity, but the choices made within guidebooks to elevate or diminish the relative

importance of the tourist destination on a micro-level, say through the framing and reframing of

specific sites or tourist sights, have also had incredible impact on the way these individual spaces

are viewed. In order to more specifically analyze and discuss the impacts of the guidebooks to

London on the city’s identification process, I will focus on two elements of these guidebooks:

their overall presentation and format, and the particular examination of each guidebook’s

presentation and understanding of the Buckingham Palace as a tourist sight.

I have chosen to select finite pairings of Baedeker and Murray/Blue Guide guidebooks

from across the temporal spectrum for more in depth analysis. This will allow me to track the

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developments within each guidebook series over time, as well as the differences and similarities

between contemporary guidebook publications. The representative guidebooks will the

following: Baedeker’s 1878 London and its Environs and Murray’s 1879 Handbook to London

as it is; Baedeker’s 1915 London and its Environs and the Blue Guides’ 1918 London and its

Environs; Baedeker’s 1955 London and its Environs and the Blue Guides’ 1953 Short Guide to

London; Baedeker’s 2011 London and the Blue Guides’ 2014 London. This more specified

examination of primary source material will allow for a meaningful inquiry into the audience that

each set of guidebooks catered to and how this affected the way that London was presented

within these contexts. Although I will focus primarily on these four sets of guidebooks, I will

include information and quotations from other contemporary guidebooks when deemed

appropriate for furthering the argument set forth in the following pages.

Nineteenth Century Guidebook Comparison

The nineteenth century period of guidebook publications to London is an intriguing one,

for while the primary audience for such vade mecums was still largely confined to individuals of

a wealthier class, there is evidence that the imposition of middle class and even some poorer

travelers into the tourism industry was beginning even before the turn of the century. Such a

transition is clearly displayed within the text of both Baedeker and Murray’s early publications

on the city of London, especially where the guidebooks deal with the subject of room and board

while visiting the city. The 1879 Murray publication, Handbook to London as it is, is a prime

example of a guidebook still almost exclusively catering to a wealthy class of tourists, for while

it offers some modest options for hotels and lodging, these are clearly not the accommodations

he is prioritizing in his descriptions. On the other hand, Baedeker’s 1878, London and its

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Environs, provides a much more democratic presentation of potential housing arrangements

during a trip to London.

Murray’s 1879 guidebook does not even make a pretense of promoting moderately priced

hotel options within the introductory paragraph of the section Hotels, Inns, &c. Instead, the

opening paragraph reads as follows:

London Hotels are so numerous that it is only possible to mention a very few of them; they are divided into several distinct classes, such as Grand Hotels, generally managed by companies; Family Hotels, patronized by the English and foreign nobility and gentry who have no town residence of their own, but generally spend some weeks during the year in London. Private Hotels similar to the above, but of a quieter and less expensive character; Hotels frequented by bachelors and sportsmen; Commercial Hotels, and hotels owned and patronized by foreigners.77

Although the introduction does mention that the Private Hotels are less expensive than the

opulent Grand Hotel option, this is clearly not a listing of hotels meant for an audience searching

primarily for modest and economical hotel arrangements. In fact, as you scan through the

detailed descriptions of each hotel “class,” every category provides the name of recommended

hotels with a few words to a sentence worth of detail about the typical clientele, atmosphere, etc.

Of course, the less expensive options are included after the listings of the most expensive

accommodations. However, the most interesting thing about this hotel registry is the author’s

presentation of Private Hotels, the only category explicitly identified in his introductory

paragraph as a less expensive option. Instead of specifically describing the character or

atmosphere of the hotels he recommends, a courtesy he provides in all other hotel categories, he

simply presents the following remarks: “Private Hotel – Fleming’s, Half Moon-st.; Brown’s,

Howchin’s, and Storey’s, Dover-st.; Mackellar’s and Hallam’s, Albemarle-st.; Ling’s and

Garlant’s, Suffolk-st., Pall-Mall, are recommended; but houses of this class are too numerous

77 John Murray, Handbook to London as it is (London: John Murray, 1879), 48.42

and varied for any limited list.”78 Instead of sparing even a couple adjectives to describe the few

specific hotels he does recommend, Murray simply writes off the entire category of less

expensive lodgings as containing too many establishments for the brevity of his index, while he

spends almost an entire page listing and describing the Family Hotel options.

Baedeker’s presentation of the tourist’s potential hotel and restaurant options in his 1878

inaugural London and its Environs is still fairly upper-class in its presentation, but he does

present the moderately priced hotel options in a slightly more optimistic and approving tone. In

the Preface to his guidebook, Baedeker makes the following statement regarding his hotel and

restaurant recommendations:

The list of hotels and restaurants enumerated in the Handbook comprises the most important establishments and many of humbler pretension. Those restaurants which the Editor believes to be most worthy of commendations are denoted by asterisks. The same system, however, has not been extended to the hotels, those enumerated in the Handbook being generally unexceptionable, although often expensive. This remark applies in particular to the first rate West End hotels and those at the principal railway stations, most of which belong to companies. At the inns in the less fashionable quarters of the Metropolis, however, comfortable accommodation may generally be obtained at moderate charges.79

Again, Baedeker is far more accommodating of the traveler on a modest budget than Murray, at

least in his initial presentation of hotel options. But with the title of his introductory section on

lodging accommodations in London, Hotels. Boarding Houses. Private Lodgings,80 Baedeker

confirms his intention to provide pertinent information for individual travellers from various

economic backgrounds. Although Baedeker spends the first page of this section describing the

excellent amenities offered at the finest hotels, his inclusion of information on boarding houses

and reasonably priced private lodgings suggests that he is aware that a potential burgeoning 78 John Murray, Handbook to London as it is (London: John Murray, 1879), 50.79 Karl Baedeker, London and its Environs, including excursions to Brighton, the Isle of Wight, etc.: Handbook for Travellers (Leipsic: Karl Baedeker, 1878), VI.80 Karl Baedeker, London and its Environs, including excursions to Brighton, the Isle of Wight, etc.: Handbook for Travellers (Leipsic: Karl Baedeker, 1878), 5.

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market of middle class and budget travelers was beginning to emerge. Baedeker’s openness to an

audience of more limited means is further exemplified when he bluntly states in his discussion of

money, “persons of moderate requirements, however, will have little difficulty, with the aid of

the information in the Handbook, in living comfortably and seeing the principal sights of London

for an expenditure of 15-20s. a day or even less.”81 Not only is Baedeker plainly stating his

interest in helping the less-well off traveler navigate the city of London, but also seems confident

that, overall, the information he presents within his handbook will be encompassing of these

needs.

While Baedeker was making an effort to cater to travellers who did not have as much

disposable income to spend, Murray’s nineteenth century guidebook still very much subscribed

to the elite, “Grand Tour” form of tourism presentation. The most obvious indicator of this

impression is found within the pages of Murray’s Handbook to London as it is, when he not only

describes the act of being presented at the court of St. James, but also proceeds to discuss it in a

way that clearly suggests the audience for his guidebook would be of a class actually able to

personally partake in this ceremony.

The names of gentlemen wishing to be presented, with the name of the nobleman or gentleman who is to present them, must be sent to Lord Chamberlain’s office several days previous to presentation, in order that they may be submitted for the Queen’s approbation, it being Her Majesty’s command that no presentation shall be made at any Levees but in conformity with the above regulations… On the presentation of Addresses to Her Majesty, no comments are suffered to be made. A deputation to present an Address must not exceed four persons.82

His specification that only gentleman and nobleman could be presented in court already alienates

any traveller not of the wealthier class, while his instructional description of the process to be

seen by the Queen gives the impression that this ceremony was still very much a part of the 81 Karl Baedeker, London and its Environs, including excursions to Brighton, the Isle of Wight, etc.: Handbook for Travellers (Leipsic: Karl Baedeker, 1878), 1.82 John Murray, Handbook to London as it is (London: John Murray, 1879), 33 – 34.

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contemporary elite tourist tradition, even though the age of the “Grand Tour” had long since

past.

Interestingly, Baedeker’s description of the same ceremony at St. James is told from an

observer’s perspective, with a deliberate exclusion of any instructions for how one might

personally attain such an audience with the Queen.

Richly dressed ladies; gentlemen, magnificent in gold-laced uniforms; lackeys in gorgeous liveries, knee-breeches, silk stockings, and powdered hair, and bearing enormous bouquets; well-fed coachmen with carefully curled wigs and three-cornered hats; splendid carriages and horses, which dash along through the densely packed masses of spectators; and a mounted band of the Life Guards, playing in front of the place; - such, so far as can be seen by the spectators who crowd the adjoining streets, windows, and balconies, are the chief ingredients which constitute toe magic ceremony of the ‘Queen’s Drawing Room’.83

The editorial choice to describe the event as more of a spectated amusement as opposed to an

integral component of the London tourist visit suggests once again that Baedeker’s guidebook is

catering to a more diverse audience, an audience that is not assumed to be of a noble class. The

flowery and descriptive language Baedeker uses to describe the event also implies an audience

with no previous experience with such an elite event, thus requiring the infusion of background

information and overly specific characterizations to contextualize the activities for the guidebook

reader. Baedeker’s presentation of the ceremony is from a decidedly outsider perspective, as

opposed to Murray’s guidebook which assumes a readership that could attain access and become

a part of these proceedings. And while Murray highlights his instructions for the presentation at

St. James as a specific subsection of his Introduction, Baedeker’s observations of the ceremony

are buried within the description for St. James Palace in his list of London’s sights. To add

further credibility to the differentiation in emphasis between the two contemporary guidebooks

to London, Baedeker makes clear in his Preface that “the most noteworthy [sights] are indicated 83 Karl Baedeker, London and its Environs, including excursions to Brighton, the Isle of Wight, etc.: Handbook for Travellers (Leipsic: Karl Baedeker, 1878), 232.

45

by asterisks.”84 Baedeker’s refusal to grant St. James Palace even one asterisk confirms his

opinion of the location as less than noteworthy, an opinion which was most certainly not shared

by Murray.

With the intended audience for each of these nineteenth century guidebooks soundly

identified, the choices each editor made in the formatting and presentation of the information

within the guidebook framework seems almost oxymoronic. Looking first at Murray’s 1879

Handbook to London as it is, given its strong ties to the elite class and their predilection for long

sojourns, one might assume that Murray would organize his guidebook based on the geographic

location of the sights in order to provide the reader with a better understanding of the entire

makeup and feel of the city as a whole. Instead, following the Introductory section of his

guidebook, Murray categorizes and organizes his descriptions of specific sites based on type,

crafting categories like Palaces of the Sovereign and Royal Family, Parks and Public Gardens,

Government Offices, Prisons and Penitentiaries, Houses in Which Eminent Persons Have Lived

or Died, Places and Sites Connected with Remarkable Events, and the list goes on.85 This

organization of tourist sights, no matter the description provided on each location, implies to the

reader that the particular sights of London are more important separately than they are as a piece

of the overall identity of the city. Such a display of information does not seem to correlate to this

guidebook’s intended audience, who would have had plenty of leisure time to explore the city

and may want to pursue a deeper understanding of the city as a unified whole.

Unlike Murray, Baedeker’s 1878 guide perfectly encapsulates a presentation of the sights

of London that simultaneously explains their unique properties while placing them within a

spatial representation of their place in the city’s terrain. Baedeker places the descriptions for all 84 Karl Baedeker, London and its Environs, including excursions to Brighton, the Isle of Wight, etc.: Handbook for Travellers (Leipsic: Karl Baedeker, 1878), VI.85 John Murray, Handbook to London as it is (London: John Murray, 1879), 7* – 8*.

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of the sights he deems worthy of mention into the geographic categories of The City, The West

End, The Surrey Side, and finally, Excursions from London.86 While this organization of tourist

sights has no reflection on how well these locations are described within their specific section,

what this initial ordering of destinations does present to the reader is the knowledge that not only

are there sights to be seen, but they are part of the much larger and complex system that is the

entire city of London. The contemporary readers of the guidebook would probably not

consciously recognized such a grandiose interpretation of this organizational choice, but the

arrangement would have still certainly affected the way that the tourist conceptualized and

rationalized the city and the sights within it. Alternatively, one might have expected the

Baedeker guidebook, focusing more deliberately on the middle class tourist, to employ a type-

based organization of the sights, as opposed to a geographical one. But it appears that the

stereotype of the superficial, sight-based tourist was still a distant future for the middle class

tourist, perhaps illuminating one of the reasons that Murray was unable to compete with

Baedeker once he breached the English-language guidebook market, Murray’s guidebooks may

not have anticipated an enlightened middle class.

Although the intended audience and organization style of each guidebook in this

particular pairing is obviously incongruous, the way that the city of London is framed and

identified within these two guidebooks is eerily similar, given their disparate followings. In

neither guidebook will you find entries that suggest a superficial tour of the city of London.

Instead, each handbook seems to present the city of London as it would have been interpreted

and experienced by those who were sojourning as part of their “Grand Tour.” Not to be confused

with the previous discussion of the social class most identified with the “Grand Tour,” the

86 Karl Baedeker, London and its Environs, including excursions to Brighton, the Isle of Wight, etc.: Handbook for Travellers (Leipsic: Karl Baedeker, 1878), vii – ix.

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philosophies of travel and touring that this enterprise encompassed were clearly separable from

their original framework of elitism, allowing both authors to reconfigure and display these

sentiments in their guidebooks for an updated audience. The London that is presented in the

pages of these guidebooks is one full of intellectual rigor, art, architecture, and history,

suggesting that although the economic background for many travelers may have been shifting,

there still remained an expectation that these tourists would be highly educated and therefore

interested in the particulars of the tourist sights. An excellent example of this projection of the

educated traveler within these guidebooks is found in the particular descriptions of Buckingham

Palace.

Looking first at Karl Baedeker’s rendering of the Buckingham Palace as a tourist sight,

the entire description, although too long to be completely transcribed here, is relatively short,

taking up less than a page and a half of the guidebook. But what the description misses in length

it makes up for with concise information, providing intimate details not only about the Palace’s

architectural history, but also the very measurements of the building. The following excerpt is

representative of how the entire entry reads:

The eastern and principal façade towards St. James’s Park, 360 ft. in length, was added by Blore in 1846; and the large ball-room and other apartments were subsequently constructed. The palace now forms a large quadrangle. The rooms occupied by Her Majesty are on the N. side. A portico, borne by marble columns, leads out of the large court into the rooms of state. We first enter the Sculpture Gallery, which is adorned with busts and statues of members of the royal family and eminent statesmen. Beyond it, with a kind of semicircular apse towards the garden, is the Library, where deputations, to whom the Queen grants and audience, wait until they are admitted to the royal presence. The ceiling of the magnificent Marble Staircase, to the left of the vestibule, is embellished with frescoes by Townsend, representing Morning, Noon, Evening, and Night.87

87 Karl Baedeker, London and its Environs, including excursions to Brighton, the Isle of Wight, etc.: Handbook for Travellers (Leipsic: Karl Baedeker, 1878), 233 – 234.

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Intermixed within a description that reads as though a tour guide is walking through the rooms

described, Baedeker presents the information he deems most important using purposefully

descriptive, yet concise, language. The information provided in the entire section mirrors this

excerpts emphasis on architectural description and history, to the neglect of nearly any other

element of the Buckingham Palace experience. The presentation of Buckingham Palace in this

guidebook is almost completely devoid of human activity, save the above quoted line concerning

deputations, which was really more a description of the function of the Library than a deliberate

inclusion of human interaction. A reader would hardly suspect that anyone was even living in the

Palace, had Baedeker not mentioned that Her Majesty occupied the rooms on the north side of

the building. Such a stoic, impersonal description of the Palace feels almost out of place in a

guidebook geared towards a middle class audience. However, as this description of Buckingham

Palace is reflective of the vast majority of the tourist sight entries within Baedeker’s guidebook,

one must assume that whether the reader of the book was upper or middle class in origin, they

were most certainly well educated.

In addition to revealing some attributes about the intended audience of this guidebook,

the presentation of this tourist sight also demonstrates how the strategies used in guidebooks to

describe a location can actually affect how the sight is interpreted. After reading this particular

entry on the Buckingham Palace, one is left to believe that the Buckingham Palace is first and

foremost, a building. The precious space within this section of the guidebook is used primarily to

describe the basic layout of the Palace, its measurements, and the paintings held within the

Palace’s Picture Gallery. But even this semblance of a potential interaction between the tourist

and this tourist sight’s artwork is crushed when Baedeker reveals towards the end of his

description, “permission to visit the Picture Gallery is obtained (during the Queen’s absence

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only) from the Lord Chamberlain on written application.”88 The fact that this location is not even

open regularly to the public, although not necessarily a prerequisite for an off-putting

impression, certainly presents an understanding of the Palace as closed-off, elusive, and even

inhuman when coupled with the description devoid of human activity. Top this interpretation off

with the fact that the only aspects of the Palace that Baedeker deemed worthy of an asterisk were

largely inaccessible to the public, it is a wonder any nineteenth century Baedeker reader even

walked by the Palace. Such a cold interpretation of one of the primary residences of the British

monarchy may also be indicative of the figurative distance between Queen Victoria and the

British people, as she was largely in seclusion following the death of her husband, Alfred, in

1861 until the Grand Jubilee celebration of her fiftieth year on the throne in 1887.89

The description of Buckingham Palace within Murray’s 1879 guidebook to London is

seemingly uncharacteristic of a work geared towards an upper class audience, as was also the

case in the layout of the guidebook. While Baedeker’s entry on the Palace is cold, distant, and

contains only the most pertinent information about the building’s architecture and building

history, Murray’s description is far more humanizing. Although he also focuses primarily on the

architecture and history of the building, he manages to include some descriptions of human

activity that liven up the entry and make the Palace almost appear livable. This strategy may

have elongated Murray’s entry on the Palace to a whopping two pages, but it did wonders for the

reader’s ability to relate to the sight.

The Green Drawing-room opening upon the upper story of the portico of the old building is 50 feet in length, and 32 in height. At state balls, to which the invitations often exceed 2000, those having the entrée alight at the temporary garden entrance, and the general circle enter by the grand hall. Visitors are

88 Karl Baedeker, London and its Environs, including excursions to Brighton, the Isle of Wight, etc.: Handbook for Travellers (Leipsic: Karl Baedeker, 1878), 234.89 Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s. v. "Victoria", accessed December 12, 2014, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/627603/Victoria.

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conducted through the Green Drawing-room to the Picture Gallery and the Grand Saloon. On these occasions refreshments are served in the Garter-room and Green Drawing-room, and supper laid in the principal Dining-room. The concerts, invitations to which seldom exceed 300, are given in the Grand Saloon.90

In comparison to Baedeker’s lifeless description of the Palace’s architecture, Murray’s

observations of the same location are practically exhilarating. If Murray’s primary readership

was indeed the upper class tourist, such an individual was very likely to receive an invitation to

one of these state balls. Providing a detailed account of the activities going on inside the Palace

could further confirm the reader’s confidence in the guidebook author’s ability to cater to their

more elite needs, while also instilling a level of excitement into the possibility of such an

encounter in the Palace.

But if a more common individual were to reference this entry in the Murray Handbook,

although probably unable to attend such a function himself, the description of actual social

events taking place within the walls of the Palace may be enough to tempt the reader to at least

see the building, if only from the outside. Like Baedeker, Murray adds as a caveat to his entry

that “the interior of the Palace is shown only by Lord Chamberlain’s order and during her

Majesty’s absence.”91 Although Murray is also letting the tourist know that gaining entrance into

the building is not straightforward or even, perhaps, possible, the overall tone of the sight

description leaves a more positive impression of the Palace that is more likely to draw a tourist to

its doors than Baedeker’s lackluster interpretation. The way the sight is presented within the

Murray guidebook also affects the way that the sight itself is viewed and interpreted within the

framework of the tourism industry. Instead of being a barren building, as Baedeker’s guidebook

might make you believe, Murray’s Buckingham Palace is lively and full of activity that makes

90 John Murray, Handbook to London as it is (London: John Murray, 1879), 2.91 Ibid.

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the reader want to visit, even though they may not even be able to witness first hand the painting

and rooms being described.

Early Twentieth Century Guidebook Comparison

The similarities between the first edition of Baedeker’s London and its Environs in 1878

(the Baedeker guidebook heavily discussed in the previous section) and the seventeenth edition

of the guidebook in 1915 are fairly substantial, considering the thirty-seven year time difference.

Below are two excerpts that exemplify the nearly word-for-word re-presentation of information

in each edition, the first being drawn from the 1878 edition, and the second from the 1915

guidebook:

The chief object of the Handbook for London, like that of the Editor’s other European and Oriental guide-books, is to enable the traveller to employ his time, money, and his energy to the best advantage, in order that he may derive the greatest possible amount of pleasure and instruction from his visit to the greatest city in the modern world.92

The chief object of the Handbook for London is to enable the traveller so to employ his time, his money, and his energy, that he may derive the greatest amount of pleasure and instruction from his visit to the greatest city in the modern world.93

Not only does the chief objective for the publication of this particular series of tourism

guidebooks remain the same between editions, the very language used to annunciate this

standpoint is almost identical, even though the original Preface is a bit wordier than it’s

descendent. But the fact that the Baedeker editors preserved the last sentiment about visiting the

“greatest city in the modern world” almost verbatim demonstrates the longevity of the reputation

and identity that the city of London had fostered, both as a modern metropolis and popular

tourist destination.

92 Karl Baedeker, London and its Environs, including excursions to Brighton, the Isle of Wight, etc.: Handbook for Travellers (Leipsic: Karl Baedeker, 1878), v.93 Karl Baedeker, London and its Environs: Handbook for Travellers (Leipsic: Karl Baedeker, 1915), v.

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There are, of course, variations between the editions when it comes to specific

information about transportation schedules, monetary concerns, and especially the listings of

recommended hotels and restaurants. But while these smaller, perfunctory updates to the

guidebook register are to be expected, it is significant that the overall organization and

presentation of the guidebook format remained largely unchanged between editions. Even though

the 1915 guidebook reflects the separation of the once all-inclusive “Introduction” of the 1878

edition into two distinct sections called “Introduction” and “Preliminary Information,”94 the

presentation of the tourist sights within a geographical framework remained consistent. The titles

of the geographical subcategories within the “Sights of London” section of the guidebook are a

bit more descriptive, having been updated to “The Strand, Holdborn, and the City,” The West

End,” “The North-West and North,” “The Surrey Side,” and “Excursions from London,” but the

unifying philosophy behind the geographically organized template remains the same.95

The development between the 1879 Murray Handbook to London as it is and its heir, The

1918 Blue Guides London and its Environs, is a completely different story. Of course, the first

recognizable difference between the two works is the fact that instead of being the product of the

John Murray publishing house, the editing of the 1918 guidebooks is credited to one of the

purchasers of the rights to Murray’s guidebooks, Findlay Muirhead.96 It is clear that the new

guidebook empire was distinguishing itself from the former Murray guidebooks, and potentially

learning from some of its predecessor’s mistakes. Mirroring the geographical organization

recognizable in the Baedeker guidebooks, this new guidebook-publishing firm also organized the

bulk of its information on particular tourist sights within the confines of their physical location

94 Karl Baedeker, London and its Environs: Handbook for Travellers (Leipsic: Karl Baedeker, 1915), vii.95 Ibid, viii – xi.96 Findlay Muirhead, The Blue Guides: London and Its Environs (London: MacMillan and Co. Ltd., 1918), III.

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within the topography of the city. The implementation of this particular convention in the Blue

Guides is to be expected, as both Findlay Muirhead and his brother, James, were instrumental in

the editing and publication of the English-language Baedeker guidebooks from their first

publication until the first decade of the twentieth century. Not only were they on staff during the

publication of Baedeker’s London and its Environs in 1878, they played a prominent role in

proliferating and popularizing the Baedeker guidebook brand and its rationalizing template in the

English language.97

The inauguration of the Blue Guides seems to have created a brand of guidebook that was

more similar in content and structure to the Baedeker guidebook than the Murray handbook had

ever been. But one interesting difference between the 1915 Baedeker guidebook and the 1918

Blue Guides guidebook is the inclusion in the latter of what can only be described as the papers

of “guest experts” on the following subjects of London culture, History and Administration of

London, British Art, London Architecture, and Literary Walks in London.98 Muirhead made the

deliberate decision to include these specific, expertly crafted essays in his guidebook, stating in

his Preface “although the ultimate test of the volumes must be their usefulness on the spot rather

than their interest in the study, such subjects as history, art, archeology, and social developments

will be treated in a discriminating and suggestive manner by experts entitled to speak with

authority.”99 Even though Muirhead recognizes that the main purpose of the guidebook as a

genre is to help the traveler navigate a particular location “on the spot,” there is clearly already

an ambition in place to make this particular brand of guidebook not only equivalent to the once

famed Baedeker, but also superior in its presentation of more sophisticated knowledge. 97 Hall, “The relaunch of the famous Blue Guide series,” 62.98 Findlay Muirhead, The Blue Guides: London and Its Environs (London: MacMillan and Co. Ltd., 1918), ix.99 Findlay Muirhead, The Blue Guides: London and Its Environs (London: MacMillan and Co. Ltd., 1918), vi.

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Furthermore, the addition of expert commentary suggests that the intended audience for this new

line of Blue Guide guidebooks was not the average, run-of-the-mill traveler, but an individual

with a serious interest in both observing the city and comprehending its facets at a much deeper

level. The Baedeker guide from 1915, on the other hand, does not offer this added level of

intellectual presentation, only citing the information on art, architecture, history, and culture that

can be contained within the brief descriptions of the particular tourist sights.

But upon looking at the more specific detail offered by each guidebook editor within their

entries on the tourist sight, Buckingham Palace, it seems that the level of descriptive work

remains almost equivalent between the two guidebook series. Baedeker’s 1915 London and its

Environs description of the Palace is very reminiscent of its ancestor, to the point of blatant reuse

of the same copy in some portions. The extremely specific architectural and historical detail of

the location is maintained, along with the troubling lack of any action verbs. As before, aside

from the fact that Baedeker states that, “[Buckingham Palace] remained empty until the

accession of Queen Victoria in 1837, since which date it has continued to be the London

residence of the sovereign,”100 the description reads as if the Palace has never seen a human

inhabitant. And while the 1879 Murray Handbook to London as it is was able to balance out

much of its detail with more humanizing descriptions of people actually occupying the space

described, the 1918 Blue Guide London and Its Environs description of the Palace reads far more

like its Baedeker contemporary than its more verbose predecessor.

The interior of the palace contains many magnificent and sumptuously decorated apartments, besides a very find gallery of *Paintings and other works of art. The handsome Grand Staircase has frescoes by Townsend. The Throne Room is 66 ft. long and its decorations include a marble frieze representing the Wars of the Roses, designed by Stothard and executed by Baily. Other fine rooms are the

100 Karl Baedeker, London and its Environs: Handbook for Travellers (Leipzig: Karl Baedeker, 1915), 266.

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Green Drawing Room (50 ft. by 33 ft.), the State Ball Room (110 ft. by 60 ft.), the Grand Saloon, and the Library.101

Although the Blue Guides description is not as economical in word selection as the Baedeker

guidebook, resulting in a slightly longer description, the sentiment of the Blue Guide description

still one of information dissemination over humanization. And while the above quoted section of

description from the Buckingham Palace entry was the same area in which the 1879 Murray

guidebook included its musings on the attendees of the State Balls, the Blue Guide editor clearly

did not find this description pertinent to the overall objective of the work. This removal of the

more humanizing descriptions can also be explained as a deliberate strategy, along with the

inclusion of expert essays, to increase the level of sophistication and legitimacy of the Blue

Guide brand to attract a more educated and serious tourist audience.

While the Baedeker guidebook is once again quite similar in both content and wording to

its predecessor, there is one particularly significant augmentation to the original script. The very

straight forward, no-nonsense presentation of the architecture and history of the Palace is still

very much a part of the style of this entry, however, the introduction of the first reference to the

“Changing of the Guard” within this description represents the origination of a shift in the

understanding and presentation of the Buckingham Palace as a tourist sight. This seemingly

innocuous event first appeared in the description of a Baedeker guidebook in the fourteenth

edition of London and its Environs, published in 1905.102 The first appearance of this discussion

is repeated verbatim in the 1915 guidebook and simply states “When the King or Queen is in

101 To avoid any confusion between the Baedeker tourism sight asterisk rating system and the use of an asterisk in this quote from the Blue Guides, this symbol simply refers to the more detailed description of the Picture Gallery and the paintings it contains. This more in depth description and listing of paintings in the Gallery is located in the paragraph immediately following the one quoted above. Findlay Muirhead, The Blue Guides: London and Its Environs (London: MacMillan and Co. Ltd., 1918), 109 – 110.

102 Karl Baedeker, London and its Environs: Handbook for Travellers (Leipzig: Karl Baedeker, 1905), 346.

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residence the guard is changed every day at 10:45 a.m., when the fine bands of the Grenadier,

Coldstream, Scots, or Irish Guards play for ¼ hr. in the forecourt.”103 This brief statement of fact

employs the same unembellished style as the rest of the entry for Buckingham Palace, making

this simple act of changing the guard no more than an interesting quirk about a location whose

reputation is otherwise securely centered within its physical edifice.

The 1918 Blue Guide to London presents a similarly brief acknowledgement of the

changing of the guard within its description of the Buckingham Palace, stating, “when the King

or Queen is in residence the palace-guard is changed ever day at 10.30 a.m. in the spacious

forecourt. The band of one of the regiments of Guards plays during this gay military

ceremony.”104 Although the time of the ceremony has clearly changed since the publication of

Baedeker’s guidebook in 1915, the Blue Guide description of the changing of the guard is very

similar to the one presented in the Baedeker guidebook, with no emotional reaction or further

discussion of the subject after its initial observation. In both the 1915 Baedeker guidebook and

this 1918 Blue Guide, the Buckingham Palace is still primarily, and perhaps only, identified by

its reality as a physical building and the home of the monarchy. This source of Buckingham

Palace identity begins to change as the mid twentieth century approaches, reflecting the

reexamination and redefinition of London identity within the framework of the expanding

tourism industry.

Mid Twentieth Century Guidebook Comparison

The 1950s were an interesting time within the chronology of guidebook publishers,

Baedeker and Blue Guides, as exemplified by the publication of the 21th edition of Baedeker’s

103 Karl Baedeker, London and its Environs: Handbook for Travellers (Leipzig: Karl Baedeker, 1915), 267.104 Findlay Muirhead, The Blue Guides: London and Its Environs (London: MacMillan and Co. Ltd., 1918), 109.

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London and its Environs in 1955 and the 6th edition of the Blue Guide series, Short Guide to

London in 1953.105 As previously mentioned, the Baedeker enterprise faced some serious

setbacks in the aftermath of the Second World War, which were evident within the publishing

history of their English-language guidebook, London and its Environs. Although the guidebooks

were revised and republished on a fairly regular basis before the commencement of World War

II, there was a very obvious twenty-year break between the publication of the 19th edition in

1930, and its 20th in 1951.106 In this case, the 1950s could be seen as the period in which the

Baedeker guidebook enterprise was able to reestablish itself within the guidebook market.

The Great Britain based Blue Guide series to London, on the other hand, was able to

continue the publication of its guidebooks at a relatively consistent rate, saving for the nine-year

hiatus between the 1938 and 1947 editions due to World War II. What is interesting about this

transitional period in the early twentieth century for the Blue Guide series in particular is the

cessation of the London and its Environs publication in favor of a Short Guide to London series.

The first edition of the Short Guide to London was published in 1924107 was clearly meant as a

supplementary, albeit shorter, reference guide published simultaneously along with the original

London and its Environs series. While the 1918 London and its Environs was nearly 500 pages

long, the Short Guides were true to their name, generally consisting of a page total around 250.

New editions for both of these series were published interchangeably until 1935, when the 4th and

final edition of the London and its Environs series was released.108 From this date on, the Short

105 Karl Baedeker, London and its Environs: Handbook for Travellers (Hamburg: Karl Baedeker, 1955); L. Russell Muirhead, The Blue Guides: Short Guide to London (London: E. Benn Ltd., 1953).106 Karl Baedeker, London and its Environs: Handbook for Travellers (Leipzig: Karl Baedeker, 1930); Karl Baedeker, London and its Environs: Handbook for Travellers (Hamburg: Karl Baedeker, 1951).107 Findlay Muirhead, The Blue Guides: Short Guide to London (London: E. Benn Ltd., 1924).108 Findlay Muirhead, The Blue Guides: London and its Environs (London: E. Benn Ltd., 1935).

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Guide to London became the only work that the Blue Guides published for the specific

navigation of the city of London.

Although the initial halt in production of the London and its Environs guidebook series

was probably due to the outbreak of World War II, it is revealing that even decades after the

resolution of the violence, the Blue Guides continued to focus its energies solely on their much

shorter guidebook enterprise. The fact that the Blue Guides maintained the brevity of their

guidebooks even into the 1950s suggests that the majority of the potential tourist audience was

not looking for the expansive descriptions and analyses available in the London and its Environs

guidebook series, but rather a quick and convenient resource. One of the most glaring differences

between the Blue Guides Short Guides and London and its Environs is the complete elimination

of the expert-written commentaries on various aspects of London culture. Instead, the 1953 Short

Guide to London is almost identical in both content and presentation to the 1955 Baedeker

London and its Environs, a series that has boasted brief guidebooks averaging somewhere

between 300 to 350 pages since its inceptions. But it is from within these simple pages that an

observable change in the presentation of London and its tourist sights can be measured.

Jumping directly into a discussion of the presentation of Buckingham Palace within these

distinctive guidebook publications, it is quite shocking to see that the description for this sight

within the Blue Guides Short Guide to London is very similar to the description presented in the

1918 Blue Guide London and its Environs. This lack of development is rather unsettling, because

of the tremendous disruption to the understanding of basic human life that occurred as a result of

the violence and devastation following the two World Wars. But the stagnation of the description

for this particular tourist sight might also represent two other sentiments: the inability for

individuals to cope with the aftermath of the World Wars, or perhaps the guidebook editors are

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just happy with the no-frills presentation of the most basic information about the sight. Either

way, the presentation of Buckingham Palace within the 1951 Blue Guide once again promotes an

identity based in its physical presence, with only a side note concerning the changing of the

guard ceremony.109

Interestingly enough, it is the Germany-based Baedeker guidebook that seems to reflect

the trend of London tourism conventions moving away from exclusively intellectual and artistic

engagements with the local sights, and more towards an easily digestible and relatable

understanding of the tourist sight. Although the 1955 Baedeker description of the Buckingham

Palace still begins with a brief relay of its history, the Palace is humanized almost from the start

as the guidebook opens with the line, “Buckingham Palace, the London residence of the

sovereign,”110 a detail that was nearly buried within the second or third paragraph of this

guidebook’s predecessors. And while the complete description of the Palace is only four, short

paragraphs long, two whole sentences of this preciously limited entry are used to describe the

changing of the guard: “When the Queen is in residence the royal standard is flown and the

guard is changed at 10.30 a. m., a guard band playing in the forecourt. The ceremony usually

takes place every other day; a notice posted near the main gate of Wellington Barracks gives

exact information.”111 This description by itself does not relate any significant change in the

identity of Buckingham Palace since the 1918 edition of the Baedeker guide to London. But

when the existence of this passage, coupled with the fact that the entry for this tourist location in

the 1955 Baedeker guidebook is partnered with a small drawing of a King’s Guard standing at

attention in his iconic hat, then a new impression of Buckingham Palace begins to emerge.

109 L. Russell Muirhead, The Blue Guides: Short Guide to London (London: E. Benn Ltd., 1953).110 Karl Baedeker, London and its Environs: Handbook for Travellers (Hamburg: Karl Baedeker, 1955), 94.111 Ibid.

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Instead of the potential reader identifying the Palace with the building, the art it contains, etc., a

reader of this particular guidebook is far more likely to identify Buckingham Palace as being

almost synonymous with the Kings Guard and the Changing of the Guard Ceremony. Of course,

identifying this location with the most accessible feature seems quite logical, given that the 1955

Baedeker guidebook makes it very clear that “the interior is never open to sightseers,”112 and the

Changing of the Guard can be enjoyed from outside the Palace walls. But even after the Palace is

opened on a limited basis to the public in 1993, the shifting of the Buckingham Palace identity

away from its edifice and towards its human guards is almost inevitable.

Twenty First Century Guidebook Comparison

Moving swiftly into the presentation of the London tourist destination in the twenty-first

century, a definitive break in both presentation and projected audience between the Baedeker and

Blue Guide guidebooks to London becomes quite evident. While the 2014 publication of the

Blue Guide London reverts back to the more lengthy presentation of information, yet maintains

the geographically-based template for organizing the tourist sights within its pages, the 2011

Baedeker London guidebook, although maintaining its average page length in the low 300s,

completely abandons the spatial orientation of its highlighted tourist sights and merely lists them

in alphabetical order.113

Looking first at the 2014 Blue Guide to London, it is clear that this particular brand of

guidebook is gearing itself towards a mores sophisticated traveler. Although the series does not

resurrect the expert-written scholarly articles included at the beginning of the 1918 edition of the

Blue Guide’s London and its Environs, the content it does provide about particular aspects of the

city of London anticipates a readership looking for specific information about its art, culture, and 112 Ibid.113 Emily Barber, Blue Guide: London (Somerset; London: Blue Guides Limited, a Somerset Books Company, 2014); Rainer Eisenschmid and John Sykes, Baedeker London (Ostfildern: Baedeker, 2011).

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architecture. Such emphasis is clearly represented within the guidebook’s presentation of

Buckingham Palace to the reader. The description of the Palace is a bit more humanizing than

the guidebook’s 1953 predecessor, albeit primarily in regards to the architect John Nash’s

tremendous accomplishments in transforming the original Buckingham House into a palace.

While this original architect of the edifice has been mentioned briefly in every guidebook since

the inception of the London guidebooks, the extent of the entry only encompasses variations on

the following: “Buckingham Palace, in St. James’s Park, was commenced in the reign of George

IV, on the site of Buckingham House, by John Nash, and completed in the reign of William

IV.”114 For the previous guidebook editions analyzed, the man is secondary to the Palace as a

physical edifice. In the 2014 Blue Guide to London, however, Nash is not only simply mentioned

as architect, but also his specific accomplishments are pointed out throughout the description,

phrased as though Nash still has partial ownership over his work.

In describing the first glance of Buckingham Palace from the Buckingham Gate, the

guidebook states, “Here, Nash’s building, in warm Bath stone, with Blore’s alterations, is

revealed.”115 This initial reminder of Nash’s designation as architect is only bolstered by the

continuous reminder of Nash’s influence throughout the description, with additions to the entry

like, “the Blue Drawing Room is a magnificent, pure Nash interior,” and “[the Music Room]

completed by Nash in 1831 and not much altered, it occupies the bow window, the central

feature of Nash’s west front.”116 These comment, coupled with the half page excerpt at the end of

the entry for Buckingham Palace that specifically focuses on the man, John Nash, demonstrates

114John Murray. Handbook to London as it is (London: John Murray, 1879).115 Emily Barber, Blue Guide: London (Somerset; London: Blue Guides Limited, a Somerset Books Company, 2014), 156.116 Ibid., 156 – 157.

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that the main priority of this entry is an in depth look at the building’s architectural and art

history.

The presentation of Buckingham Palace is a clear reflection of the purpose of the entire

guidebook as a whole, as the extensive page total allows the editor to input greater detail about

the specifics of London art, architecture, and history. The Blue Guide to London is clearly meant

for an audience seeking a sophisticated tourist experience, centered on a higher level of

intellectual examination. This designation is no better exemplified than by the very brief

acknowledgement of the Changing of the Guard within the 2014 guidebook description of

Buckingham Palace. While the editor of the guidebook went out of their way to make sure the

audience knew as much as possible about the architectural history of the Palace, there is just one,

simple notice that the Changing of the Guard is an event associated with the Palace: “On the

wide palace forecourt, behind the ornamental railings, the Changing of the Guard ceremony

takes place (11.30am, daily May – July, otherwise alternate days, weather permitting).”117 Even

within this description of an event that is not an actual piece of the physical Palace, the editor

still manages to emphasize and describe the building with more adjectives than the actual

pronouncement it is making about the Changing of the Guard. If a tourist were to only read this

particular guidebook to London, they would be very firmly convinced that the primary identity

and importance of the Buckingham Palace is the edifice itself and its rich architectural history.

This observation definitively proves the inherent malleability of the presentation of the tourist

sight, as the reader of the 2011 Baedeker guide to London would intake an almost converse

understanding of the Buckingham Palace as a tourist destination.

The first and most immediately obvious attribute in the 2011 Baedeker guidebook’s

description of the Buckingham Palace is the third of a page, color photograph of the Changing of 117 Ibid., 155.

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the Guard Ceremony.118 The use of this photograph, especially when compared to the photograph

of the exterior of Buckingham Palace that is used in the 2014 Blue Guide London,119 symbolizes

that the most important attribute of the Buckingham Palace within the framework of the tourism

industry is its connection to the Changing of the Guard Ceremony. This sentiment is further

supported by the text used to describe the Changing of the Guard:

The best time of day to visit Buckingham Palace is when the Changing of the Guard takes place. In summer this is normally daily at 11.30am, in winter every other day at 11.30am, except when the weather is bad. At about the same time a squadron of the Household Cavalry coming from changing the guard at the Horse Guards (>Whitehall) rides past the palace on the way to their headquarters in Hyde Park Barracks. Five infantry regiments of the Royal Guard do duty at Buckingham Palace: the Scots Guards (founded in 1642), the Coldstream Guards (1650), the Grenadiers (1656), the Irish Guards (1900) and the Welsh Guards (1913). They all wear the famous bearskin caps and uniforms with scarlet jackets.120

Not only is this one of the most thorough descriptions of any attribute of the Buckingham

Palace experience, but this description practically out rightly suggests, if not implores, the reader

to visit the site specifically to witness the Changing of the Guard ceremony. The detailed

information about the history of the various regiments is providing relevant, historical

information about the ceremony, but including all of this background information within the

entry specifically for Buckingham Palace, as opposed to creating another entry concerning the

Kings Guards, is another statement on how this particular guidebook is framing the relevance of

the Buckingham Palace within its own description.

The rest of the Baedeker description of the actual Palace, consisting of about a page of

text, does provide historical and architectural information, albeit brief. But the discussion of the

Palace itself in the Baedeker guidebook is nowhere near as detailed or specific as the 118 Rainer Eisenschmid and John Sykes, Baedeker London (Ostfildern: Baedeker, 2011), 159.119 Emily Barber, Blue Guide: London (Somerset; London: Blue Guides Limited, a Somerset Books Company, 2014), 155.120 Rainer Eisenschmid and John Sykes, Baedeker London (Ostfildern: Baedeker, 2011), 159.

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presentation within the Blue Guide guidebook, nor does the Baedeker guidebook’s description

provide a similar “walking tour” feel of the Palace that the Blue Guide so effortlessly executes.

As evidenced below, the first excerpt from the Blue Guide to London spends more words on the

description of the entrance to the Palace than the second excerpt from the Baedeker guidebook

spends describing the entire Buckingham Palace visitor experience:

Visitors enter the palace via the Ambassador’s Entrance on Buckingham Gate, which leads to the courtyard behind the east wing. Here, Nash’s building, in warm Bath stone, with Blore’s alterations, is revealed. The sculptural theme is British sea power: in the pediment is Britannia Acclaimed by Neptune, designed by Flaxman, and inside Nash’s two-storey columned portico is J.E. Carew’s The Progress of Navigation. The friezes in the attic storey, The Death of Nelson and The Meeting of Blücher and Wellington, both by Westmacott, were added by Blore and were originally intended for the Marble Arch.121

In late summer visitors admitted to 19 of the more than 600 rooms, including the Throne Room, the State Dining Room and the remarkably fine private collection in the art gallery. The twelve private apartments of the royal family in the north wing remain closed, of course – though visitors would not meet any blue-blooded residents, as the royal family take their holiday at Balmoral Castle in Scotland at this time of year.122

The clear emphasis within the Baedeker guidebook is to provide the tourist with the most basic

information about the Palace’s history and layout, but in so doing, the editor provides

categorically more information regarding the specifics of the Changing of the Guard than it does

about the tourist experience inside the actual Buckingham Palace. The ultimate solidification of

this interpretation is made when the Baedeker guidebook, still employing its star-rating system,

not only gives the overall Buckingham Palace tourist sight two stars (an honor not awarded to the

sight until this very edition), but within the description grants the Changing of the Guard its own

star-rating.

121 Emily Barber, Blue Guide: London (Somerset; London: Blue Guides Limited, a Somerset Books Company, 2014), 156.122 Rainer Eisenschmid and John Sykes, Baedeker London (Ostfildern: Baedeker, 2011), 158.

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The deliberate editing choices on the part of both guidebook authors, the Blue Guides’ to

provide more detailed architectural information and the Baedeker’s to provide more superficial,

easily digestible information, demonstrates the extreme malleability of a tourist sight’s

presentation and understanding within the guidebook framework. Looking at these two

guidebooks, a reader would come away with two distinctly different interpretations of the true

identity of the Buckingham Palace. As stated before, a reader of the Blue Guides would assume

the most important attributes of the Palace are its architecture and the history the building

erection encompasses. A reader of the Baedeker guidebook, however, would assume that the

Changing of the Guard is the most significant representation of the Buckingham Palace

experience, and most likely alter his visit accordingly. If even such a narrowly focused

examination of the content of tourism guidebooks can yield such vastly different interpretations

of the same tourist sight, imagine the wealth of interpretations that must be presented within the

rest of the tourism guidebook market, whether nineteenth century publication or a digitally

published guidebook of the twenty-first century.

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CHAPTER IVConclusions: Modern Tourism and Identity

The tourism industry in London, England is far greater than the impressions put down on

paper in the guidebooks analyzed for this thesis, but this genre of travel writing offers a very

important perspective on the framing, interpretation, and presentation of a tourist destination and

its numerous attractions. The choices made by the editors and publishers of guidebooks have the

ability to inadvertently (or perhaps purposefully) alter the way that a tourist will not only

navigate a city, but also come to understand the location in relation to him. Some presentation

may have little effect on the shaping of an idea or opinion about a specific tourist sight, either

due to the lack of information or a deliberate perpetuation of commonly understood realities and

myths. On the other hand, some descriptions within guidebooks may leave the impressions of a

modern tourist changed forever. The most emotional and impassioned depiction of a tourist sight

within any of the London guidebooks originally surveyed for this thesis spoke of the

Buckingham Palace in these terms:

DON’T GO! The crowds are huge, and it is difficult to see anything. To have a chance of seeing something, you have to get there early, at least by 10 A.M. And

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so you wind up spending a whole precious morning of your time in London peering over the heads of others at soldiers who appear to be motionless most of the time. You have more rewarding things to do with your time.123

Doesn’t exactly leave the tourist with a warm and fuzzy feeling or ambitions to visit the

Buckingham Palace. These small instances of identity creation and manipulation within tourism

guidebooks are particularly important in the modern era of tourism, as the lines between the

casual tourist interpretation of a particular location or sight and the actual reality of that

location’s identity continue to overlap.

What I hoped to accomplish in the writing of this thesis was a better understanding and

appreciation for the way that the presentation of the Baedeker, Murray, and Blue Guide

guidebooks changed over time, in addition to how the content presented within these works

affects the larger understanding and identity creation process for the city and its tourist sights. As

my analysis in Chapter Three articulates, the guidebook format and presentation has not only

been drastically altered over time, but the differences between two contemporary guidebooks can

also be significant. The observations of how these guidebooks can affect the very interpretation

of a city’s identity will have lasting implications for how both the historical and modern

manifestations of tourism are understood and rationalized.

In the current age of over-marketing and branding, it is not uncommon for a country,

region, or even city to present an impression of their perceived identity within the short few

words of a slogan. This development in location branding is really only logical (if it can ever be

considered ‘logical’) within the confines of the tourism industry, and London, England is no

exception. A 2007 article in The Independent presents the slightly unsettling reality that

“Britain’s councils and tourist boards spend millions on hiring brand consultants to choose the

123 Jack W. Meiland, First Time in London: A Handy Guide (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1979), 43.

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few special words they hope will attract new visitors.”124 And although the phrases generated by

these brain trusts may not necessarily reflect the actual attributes of the city that draw the most

visitors (let’s hope the city rethinks the slogan “Totally LondON”125 in the near future), the

slogan’s existence at all is simply a commoditized incarnation of location-based identity creation

and presentation. Such presentation, particularly in the realm of tourism development and

expansion, has been proliferating in the guidebook literature to London since their first

publications in the mid nineteenth century. As the guidebook becomes a more popular and

academically endorsed source material for scholarly investigation, the apparent manipulations of

identity within the tourism framework will become both a more accepted phenomenon and a

provable one.

While many scholarly examinations of the tourism industry in First World locations like

London, England still subscribe to the paradigm that the tourist destination in these regions is

somehow inherently above the manipulative forces of the tourist gaze, this analysis of only two

series of guidebooks to London soundly disproves this assumption. As future research begins to

delve deeper into comparisons of guidebooks from different regions and guidebooks with

different readerships, an even more complete picture of the malleability of site identity will

become evident. While it is impossible to go back to the nineteenth century and walk the street of

London, England as a tourist, the creation and preservation of the tourism guidebook genre

provides the next best gateway into an understanding of how a tourist interpreted and understood

the foreign tourist space at any point between the nineteenth and the twenty-first centuries.

124 Emily Dugan, “How Britain sells itself: Welcome to the land of slogans,” The Independent, November 29, 2007, accessed November 13, 2014, www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/how-britain-sells-itself-welcome-to-the-land-of-slogans-760834.html. 125 Dugan, “How Britain sells itself.”

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