Cornhill to Grand Cairo

by William Makepeace Thackeray

Sarah Searight (Introduction)

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Book cover for Cornhill to Grand Cairo

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This little-known work from Thackeray's early career, written while he was still an impecunious journalist and before the success of "Vanity Fair", shows the style which was soon to make him a major literary figure. It is a lively account of his journey in 1844 to the Eastern Mediterranean, via Gibraltar, Malta and Rhodes, to visit the newly-fashionable extensions to the Grand Tour of Constantinople, Jerusalem and Cairo. Thackeray travels by steamboat, itself a novelty, and gives his impressions of the people, antiquities and buildings which had already begun to captivate the imagination of the British public. These impressions combine to make a spirited and witty travelogue - sometimes irreverent, sometimes cynical, but vivid in description. The illustrations, some of which have only recently become accessible, are by leading orientalist painters of the period, a number of whom were visited by Thackeray on his journey and are featured in the book.
  • ISBN10 1873054017
  • ISBN13 9781873054017
  • Publish Date 10 June 1991
  • Publish Status Out of Print
  • Out of Print 6 May 2008
  • Publish Country GB
  • Publisher Pavilion Books
  • Imprint Collins & Brown
  • Edition New edition
  • Format Hardcover
  • Pages 160
  • Language English