author
W. Cope (William Cope) Devereux
1837–1903
A 19th-century travel writer and former Royal Navy clerk, he wrote from firsthand experience of life at sea and journeys around the Mediterranean. His books mix observation, movement, and the practical detail of someone who had really been there.
1 Audiobook
Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo Comprising a Tour Through North and South Italy and Sicily with a Short Account of Malta
by W. Cope (William Cope) Devereux
About the author
Born on 11 December 1837, William Cope Devereux was educated at Christ's Hospital and entered the Royal Navy as an Assistant Clerk in 1854. He later turned his experiences into travel writing, drawing on service that took him to the eastern coast of Africa during the era of British anti-slave-trade patrols.
His best-known book, A Cruise in the "Gorgon" (1869), recounts eighteen months aboard HMS Gorgon and includes material connected with operations against the slave trade near Zanzibar, as well as a trip up the Zambezi with David Livingstone. He also wrote Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo (1884), a more leisurely travel work focused on Italy, Sicily, Malta, and the Riviera.
Devereux's writing is valuable for the way it joins Victorian travel narrative with eyewitness reporting. Even when the tone is shaped by its period, his books still offer a vivid sense of movement, place, and the habits of a well-traveled observer.