1892 ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT WORLD TRAVEL DIARY HANDWRITTEN BY A 'TYPICAL' VICTORIAN GENTLEMAN

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On offer is a super original 19th Century manuscript travel diary in a premium leather bound notebook of about 200 pages of lined paper. Signed and dated 1892 by Henry A. Whitehead on the first page. [Research suggests Whitehead was vicar of the village in the mid nineteenth century.] The journey starts from Shustoke in Warwickshire, via Birmingham to Liverpool, where the author with his companion McWilliams boards his first boat The Mareotis, at Huskisson Dock, bound for Gibraltar, Tangiers, Algeria, Malta, Alexandria, Ramleh, Cairo, Aden, Zanzibar, Mozambique, Durban and beyond. This is a very languid look at the life and experiences of a leisured Victorian tourist in North Africa who receives invitations to Governor's parties, meets and calls on Colonels and Majors with important jobs, who knows the HMS Thunderer and HMS Camperdown when he sees them in harbour, visiting the 'Armoury', mentions making many sketches, interesting commentary regarding other passenger particulary the German officers after Cairo, interesting copy of a King Neptune broadside, a guest of the Consul, time spent with Churchill and much, much more. Whitehead arrived back in England in September, the last few months of the diary being devoted to his daily home life. Only the last six pages of the notebook are unused. Covers rubbed at edges. Spine splitting. Internally fine. These daily entries vary in length from just a few lines to several pages and run from January 29th to 31st December of the same year. Overall G+. Show more