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Petra ten-Doesschate Chu Biography

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“It is perhaps not superfluous to point out here that throughout the 1830s and 1840s travel was still for the most part an activity for the rich or the adventurous. Most transportation on the European continent was by ship or mail coach, and it was time-consuming, expensive, and uncomfortable. Not until the emergence of the train did travel become an activity for the middle and lower middle class. Yet the railroads were still in their infancy under the July Monarchy. The first passenger railway was not built until 1837, and by 1840 only 433 kilometers of rail had been laid down. Then railroad building picked up speed; by 1848, 1,592 kilometers of rail lines were in use while 2,144 more were under construction. The railroads were to encourage yet a new kind of travel publication, the railroad guide or itinerary, which described and illustrated (in wood engravings or lithographs) the major sights along a particular line. However, this new type of publication, though it originated during the July Monarchy, did not become widespread until the Second Empire.”

RailwayTrainsRailroad Guide
Book:The Art of the July Monarchy: France, 1830 to 1848
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“Books devoted to France and its various regions became increasingly popular toward the later part of the July Monarchy. This growing preoccupation with France itself—perhaps best exemplified in the novels of George Sand—was a complex phenomenon, related at once to romantic nationalism, to improving communications within France, and to the retreat, after the 1830 revolution, of the legitimist nobility to their country estates, which contributed to making the countryside fashionable. Though by no means a new genre—they had been widely published since the middle of the eighteenth century—the travelogues had a wider audience than ever before during the July Monarchy because, like novels, they often appeared initially as installments in newspapers, to be published only later in book form. Thus, they were read by a broad segment of the public. Indeed, from upper to lower middle class, the French during the July Monarchy were a nation of enthusiastic armchair travelers.”

George SandTravelogues
Book:The Art of the July Monarchy: France, 1830 to 1848
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“The fascination of the July Monarchy public with lithographic albums was intimately related to the popularity of the travelogue, which constituted an important literary form at the time. Professional travelers and scientists as well as many of the major writers of the period dedicated themselves to this genre. Stendhal’s Promenades dans Rome (1829) and his Memoires d'un touriste (1838); Alphonse de Lamartine’s Voyage en Orient (1832-1833); Victor Hugo’s Rhin (1842); George Sand’s Lettres d'un voyageur (1834-1836); Theophile Gautier’s Tour en Belgique (1836) and his Tra los Montes (1843); and Alexandre Dumas’s Quinze jours au Sinai are some of the outstanding examples of the travelogues published in the 1830s and 1840s.”

Travelogue
Book:The Art of the July Monarchy: France, 1830 to 1848
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“In his comprehensive survey of romantic landscape lithographs, Jean Adhemar has demonstrated that these albums were made up of topographic prints in a picturesque mode, depicting both foreign and French scenes. While albums depicting foreign scenes were generally devoted to a single country, those showing French scenes usually took the form of regional albums that featured a department, a historic region (Normandy, Brittany), or a mountain range (the Pyrenees or the Jura). The importance they played may be gauged not only from the considerable number of albums that were published but also from the substantial editions that were printed, particularly of the albums that were published in Paris.”

Lithographs
Book:The Art of the July Monarchy: France, 1830 to 1848
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