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Rating: 
Summary: An Engaging Journey
Review: As someone who is passionate about the 18th century France, I purchased Mr. Dolan's book with great excitement and many anticipations. I am happy to say, it was a purchase well made. Ladies of the Grand Tour is an interesting look into the minds and hearts of European Women living during a tulmultuous times. Mr. Dolan deftly weaves contrasting views on society (ex: Burke and Wollstonecraft sound off opposing opinions about my idol, Marie Antoinette) making for a well-balanced read.
Though I have never been a huge fan of the unctuous Wollstonecraft, I found her quotes in this book illuminating and thought-provoking.
Christopher Hibbert published a wonderful book titled THE GRAND TOUR which reads like an 18th Century Tour Book of several of the finest cities in Europe. As fantastic as that book is, it does not deliver the human drama, the emotions of the female travelers, that Dolan's masterpiece offers.
Bravo!Leah Marie Brown,
Author of Willing Captive
Rating:
Summary: An Engaging Journey
Review: As someone who is passionate about the 18th century France, I purchased Mr. Dolan's book with great excitement and many anticipations. I am happy to say, it was a purchase well made. Ladies of the Grand Tour is an interesting look into the minds and hearts of European Women living during a tulmultuous times. Mr. Dolan deftly weaves contrasting views on society (ex: Burke and Wollstonecraft sound off opposing opinions about my idol, Marie Antoinette) making for a well-balanced read.
Though I have never been a huge fan of the unctuous Wollstonecraft, I found her quotes in this book illuminating and thought-provoking.
Christopher Hibbert published a wonderful book titled THE GRAND TOUR which reads like an 18th Century Tour Book of several of the finest cities in Europe. As fantastic as that book is, it does not deliver the human drama, the emotions of the female travelers, that Dolan's masterpiece offers.
Bravo! Leah Marie Brown,
Author of Willing Captive
Rating: 
Summary: Illuminating lives of women travellers
Review: Life in the eighteenth century for women was a strange mixture of education, enlightenment and restriction. The fact that some could travel so freely seems an anomaly given their general position in society legally - yet travel many did - and write about - they did too. Dolan has used mostly diaries and letters of female travellers for this large and well-researched book. There is a lot of material which sheds new light (for me anyway) on the life of women travelling during this time but he tends to use the diaries and letters of those women who are already very well written about simply because there is such a wealth of material about them so Lady Bessborough, Lady Holland, Mary Montagu, Mary Wollstonecraft and Marianna Starke (to name the main ones) dominate the book. Perhaps there just isn't the same wealth of material about travel undiscovered and so the main writers are returned to. These women have certainly been used to define this age. The advantage of this book is it really does illustrate (and very well) the life of the traveller, the difficulties and how they travelled etc - without getting caught up in all the other issues that litter their diaries/letters - so you have travel unadulterated. He has also split the book up into nine topical chapters including travel of Education and Improvement, Fashionable Society and Foreign Affairs - and my favourite chapter - Sea Breezes and Sanity. There are also a number of good illustrations used - although I rather question some of the captions used - For instance using Vermeer's picture "Woman in Blue" - a picture of a woman reading a letter - to caption it "A woman absorbed in a letter from an absent lover..." seems to be both pushing the pathos and the aesthetic art interpretation a bit far.... couldn't it just as easily have been a note from the grocer? ...or her sister in the next town....or her mother? Anyway - those niggles aside I think this is a great book to add depth to a library of anyone who is interested in this period.
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