By-gone Tourist Days: Letters of Travel

In this charming collection of late‑19th‑century travel letters, a keen observer records her journeys across Europe and the Atlantic with the immediacy of a diary. The prose melds personal feeling with cultural notes, inviting listeners into a world of bustling ports, historic streets, and genteel society.

The first letters recount a tempestuous crossing on the steamer Adriatic, where towering ice‑capped peaks rose like “Alps upon Alps” and the ship rode a sea of rolling forties. Amid the sway, the writer meets fellow travelers—relatives of Longfellow, a Unitarian minister, and a lively Bostonian circle—offering vivid snapshots of their conversations and the quiet wonder of an Easter sunrise at sea. She then steps ashore in England, wandering Chester’s ancient walls and climbing King Charles’s tower, absorbing the layered history of the city.

Interspersed with period illustrations of Shakespeare’s birthplace, the Pantheon, and Venetian palaces, the letters bring each destination to life. Listeners will feel the cobblestones beneath their feet as the author moves from one storied locale to the next, sharing both the grandeur of monuments and the intimacy of everyday moments.