A Tour Through Sicily and Malta, in a Series of Letters to William Beckford, Esq. of Somerly in Suffolk; from P. Brydone, F.R.S.

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xii, 387 pp. 8vo. Large fold-out map of Sicily and Malta precedes title page. A series of thirty-eight letters from a Scottish traveler and author who served as Comptroller of the Stamp Office, to William Beckford, referencing voyages the two undertook together in the late 1760s. Originally published in 1773, it was popular enough to see seven or eight editions during Brydone's lifetime, and helped earn Brydone membership in the Royal Society. Early editions were published in two volumes; the first one-volume edition appeared in the 1790s. William Beckford was known in his own right for A Descriptive Account of the Island of Jamaica, a two-volume description of contemporary life in Jamaica from a planter's point of view. His son William Thomas Beckford would later write his own account of travels in Italy, entitled Dreams, Waking Thoughts and Incidents, as well as the famous novel Vathek. "This was one of the most successful works on Italian travel written in the eighteenth century and was the first important book on Sicily. Brydone considered himself something of a pioneer in this respect and the work remained popular until after the Napoleonic wars, when renewed interested in the island, as a result of the British occupation, led to the appearance of many new works. An earlier work on Sicily, by John Dryden the younger, was not published until 1776, after the success of Brydone's Tour had demonstrated public interest in the island." (Pine-Coffin 770.2) Show more