[Transcription of the introduction to the English-language travel writing microfiche edition provided by the publishers, Georg Olms Ltd.]
Microedition of the Corvey library with rare and unique books
About 994 titles on 4,472 Fiches. Silver halide fiches:
The Corvey Collection contains 994 titles of geographical works and travel literature in English. An analysis of the dates of these works again confirms our knowledge of some of the principles behind the collection: only 29 titles were published before 1800; the earliest book of the collection dates from 1717, in the following years only one or two titles were acquired per year. After the death of Landgrave Victor Amadeus of Hesse-Rotenburg (1779-1834) the polyglot purchase policy he had introduced for the years 1800 to 1834 was discontinued again. The Corvey Collection holds only 29 titles published after 1834; they largely comprise practical guide-books and a few titles concerning the United States of America (7 titles).
Between 1800 and 1834, during the most important period in the history of the Princely Library, Landgrave Victor Amadeus collected a total of 774 contemporary titles: 96 titles between 1800 and 1809, 169 between 1810 and 1819, 496 between 1820 and 1829, and another 177 between 1830 and 1834. Similar to the astonishing collection of belles lettres the density and diversification of its travel literature is highly significant.
The great variety of travel books, first of all mirrors the enormous interest of the British, who have always been keen on travelling to foreign countries. The most popular destination in the early 19th century was Continental Europe (256 titles), with Southern Europe (France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece: 140 titles) naturally occupying the first place, followed by Central Europe (Germany -- especially the Rhine area, the Alps, Northern France, Belgium, and the Netherlands: 57 titles).
South-eastern Europe is dealt with in 16 titles, Northern Europe in 20 titles, Eastern Europe in 28 titles.
The most popular destination after the continent are in the British Isles: 187 titles, but only 63 of them are home travels -- England and Wales 31 titles, Scotland 31 titles, and Ireland 33 titles. A large part of this subsection is made up of two series of non-fiction in a narrow sense edited by George A. Cooke (46 titles) and William Pinnock (24 titles). Both authors mainly outline topographical, statistical, and historical aspects of different regions in the British Isles.
Apart from the European travel books the collection contains a large amount of travel literature relating to the American continent (186 titles) -- North America 101 titles, South America 62 titles, and 7 titles regarding the whole of the American continent. Asia and the Near East are described in 112 titles, while the subcontinent of India, which had become the most important colony of the British Empire after the loss of the American colonies, is the main subject of 98 travel books. Another 98 travel books deal with the African continent (80 titles) and the Arabian countries (18 titles).
Only 30 books describe the far off continent of Australia, which James Cook's discoveries (1 title) and the beginnings of the British colonisation in 1788 literally put on the map. A comparatively great number of books deal with Tasmania, which is probably closely connected to the fact, that Van Diemen's Land was declared a British colony in 1825 (see Bischoff, Sketch of the History of Van Diemen's Land, 1832). The collection also holds 4 titles about Australia, which are ascribed to George Barrington (1755-1804), the notorious Irish explorer and pickpocket, that was deported to the penal colony in 1790.
Last but not least, there are a few subgenres of travel literature that complete the overview of the rich variety of the collection: 42 tales of shipwrecks and pirates (partly fiction); 19 South Sea voyages; 15 travel books describing several continents; 15 historical travel books (e.g., Jean Froissart's history of the Courts of England, France, and Spain in the 14th century; Marco Polo's travels to the Far East in the 13th century, and Magalotti Lorenzo's Travels of Cosmo the Third, Grand Duke of Tuscany... [1669]); 13 collections (Popular Voyages, Flowers of Modern Voyages, etc.); 5 descriptions of cities; 2 journeys to the Arctic regions, and 5 fictitious travel books (e.g., Laurence Sterne's Sentimental Journey in an English edition published in Gottingen in 1806).
Fifty-three titles in the collection were published anonymously, while 131 titles were written by male authors, and only 41 by female authors. In contradistinction to novel writers of the period (1), the gender distribution for travel books fully meets traditional expectations. For obvious reasons there were far less women travellers than male travellers. Only 18 of the contemporary female novelists are represented within the collection, but we find more than 30 male novelists. The best-known female and male authors of both novels and travelogues among these are Marguerite Blessington, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, Sydney Morgan (female Grand tours), Frances Trollope, Edward G. Bulwer Lytton, James F. Cooper, Daniel Defoe, Charles Dickens, Washington Irving, Matthew G. Lewis, Frederick Marryat, Charles Sealsfield, and Laurence Sterne.
Notes
(1) Between 1800 and 1829, 43.3% of all novels published were written by female authors and only 39.7% by male authors, the rest is unidentified.