ABSTRACT
In the earlier part of Victoria’s reign writers, journalists and others eager to recount their expeditions to far-flung parts led the rush to the shore. John Eagles (1839) wrote of his ‘excursion over the mountains to Aberystwyth’ as an adventure through wild, beautiful and unspoiled scenery to the Welsh town, then a favoured resort of artists. Some were contemptuous of the ‘professional sight-hunters’ who went ‘sighthunting’ with the sole purpose of writing up their experiences, thus spoiling ‘rational travel’, destroying ‘intelligent curiosity’ and repelling the ‘manly investigator’ (Croly, 1848, p.185). Nothing daunted, Blackwoods Magazine in particular was happy to fill pages with the tales of gentlemen travellers keen to shake off metropolitan lassitude, to embark on improving journeys to distant corners, and to quit the ‘toil and turmoil of London for the bright and breezy coast’ (Lewes, 1856, p.184). In such places they could feast their eyes on ‘the glittering ocean’ and the ‘wild magnificence’ of grand, rocky coastlines (Warren, 1855, p.485).
