ABSTRACT
Guidebooks, like railways, are institutions highly characteristic of the nineteenth century.1 Both had their beginnings in earlier times, but both came to flourish in the age of steam: so much so, indeed, that it might be said of either that they have never been quite the same since. They were not instantly associated with each other, though once they came together, as they notably did in George Measom’s railway guides, their conjuncture seemed so natural as to be symbiotic, and even foreordained.
