"Not So Barren Or Uncultivated": British Travellers in Finland, 1760-1830

Description

Finland in the eighteenth century was not a destination for the faint-hearted. Travellers told of winter temperatures which froze brandy in the bottle, and of summer journeys when they were eaten alive by bugs and mosquitoes. But they also wrote lyrical accounts of sledging over the ice from Stockholm, and of the idyllic beauty of Finland's lakes and islands. Tony Lurcock brings to life these forgotten journeys and the travellers who made them. Many were upper-class gentlemen taking an alternative to the Grand Tour, and interested in agriculture, landscape and the picturesque. Others saw Finland as the home of a primitive race living in a virtuous 'state of nature' - but met the reality of primitiveness with mixed responses. There were also scientists, adventurers, sailors, missionaries ...Part anthology, part history, it gives a picture of Finland at a time when it was little known to the outside world.