eric carrington smith (1 Ergebnisse)

Hardcover. Zustand: Very Good. Blank notebook. Small quarto. Contemporary quarter leather over marbled paper boards. The boards are rubbed and worn at the edges, very good. Contains about 100 manuscript pages, including a title page, one full-page hand drawn map, and tipped-in illustration. Handwritten itinerary tipped onto front pastedown. A lively account, by one of the participants, of a journey undertaken by five rowers in a Thames rowing gig *Wild Goose* from April-May, 1856. The five Englishmen, named on the title page, journeyed from Paris to the Mediterranean (via the Seine, Saône, and Rhone Rivers), and then to Bordeaux (via the canal du Midi and Garonne River), a total of approximately 670 rowing miles, with other parts of the journey accomplished by portage overland. Much of the narrative concerns appalling weather and mishaps during the voyage, including lively descriptions and humorous asides. The exploits of these eccentric Englishmen captured the public imagination, and the Wild Goose's travels were also well-documented in the press. In later stages of their journey, landfalls were attended by large and enthusiastic crowds: " as we approached the town, the excitement became greater and greater; we were accompanied by hundreds of men and boys running along the towing path, while women and old men stationed themselves so as to see us pass when we reached the foot of a staircase of five locks the sides of the locks, the lockgates, and the windows of the overlooking houses, were simply a mass of human faces The crowd was composed of all ranks, from ladies with white parasols and Paris fashions down to peasant girls with bare feet, and half savage, mahogany colored rustics And although we could not but be flattered by such an ovation, our self-love was rather hurt at hearing that the principal cause of all this excitement was a report that we had undertaken the journey for a bet of 500,000 francs." Included in the account are extracts from the French and English press, highlighted by a wood engraving of the gig and its crew tipped-in from the popular French magazine *L'Illustration*. The hearty oarsmen achieved further fame by rescuing passengers in a carriage from drowning, an event which was reported fulsomely in the *Daily News* on May 26th. An actual, non-fictional account of the sort of English eccentricity popularized 30 years later by Jerome K. Jerome's comic novel *Three Men in a Boat*.