Cambridge Library Collection - Travel, Europe
2 total works
William George Clark (1821-78) is probably best remembered as the co-editor (with W. Aldis Wright) of the Cambridge Shakespeare (1863-6; also reissued in this series). A fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, he was a classical and literary scholar and editor, but travelled widely in his vacations, and this work, first published in 1858, is an account of a tour of Greece undertaken in 1856 with W. H. Thompson (1810-86), who later succeeded William Whewell as Master of Trinity. Clark's plan was to visit the archaeological sites of the Peloponnese using W. M. Leake's various surveys as a guide and comparing Leake's observations and his own with those of the ancient traveller Pausanias. The result is an engaging combination of travel narrative and serious archaeological and topographical research backed up by a profound knowledge of classical literature. It remains an interesting resource for those studying the history of Greek archaeology.
This short book derives from an article published in the periodical Vacation Tourists and Notes of Travel, edited by Francis Galton, in 1860. W. G. Clark (1821-78) was most famous as co-editor of the Cambridge Shakespeare, but was originally a classical scholar, whose Peloponnesus (1858) is also reissued in this series. This lively account of a critical period in Italian history, 'during the occurrence of events so strange and sudden that they resembled incidents of a romantic melodrama rather than real history', deliberately avoids the usual landscapes, ruins and peasants to give a day-by-day description of events in Naples at the time when Garibaldi had arrived in the city during his campaign for the liberation of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. However, as well as narrating political and military developments, Clark introduces some picturesque notes, including an account of the famous 'miracle' of the liquefaction of St Gennaro's blood.