author
Algernon Bastard
Best known for co-authoring The Gourmet's Guide to Europe in 1903, this little-known Edwardian writer helped shape a lively guide for travelers in search of memorable meals. His surviving public footprint is small, which gives his work an added sense of period charm and rarity.
1 Audiobook
The Gourmet's Guide to Europe
by Lieut.-Col. (Nathaniel) Newnham-Davis, Algernon Bastard
About the author
Algernon Bastard is a little-documented British author remembered chiefly for The Gourmet's Guide to Europe (1903), written with Lieutenant-Colonel Nathaniel Newnham-Davis. The book is an early culinary travel guide, mapping out restaurants, regional specialties, and the pleasures of eating well across European cities.
Publicly available sources suggest he is the same John Algernon Bastard, born in 1844 and died in 1908. Beyond those basic facts, confirmed biographical detail is scarce, so his reputation rests mostly on this one collaboration rather than on a large body of published work.
That makes his writing especially interesting for modern readers: it opens a window onto upper-class travel, taste, and food culture at the start of the twentieth century. Even when the man himself stays in the background, the book preserves a vivid record of how gourmets once moved through Europe.