Between the Covers

Hardcover. Octavo. Figured cloth with leather spine label ("Tour in the North of Europe 1835"). 233 closely and neatly written pages, mostly written on one side of each leaf (although it varies between rectos and versos), bound with nicely engraved letterheads and illustrations of the various locales visited and described, some are hand colored, also with a folding hand-colored map of Denmark published by Thomas Kelly in London, 1834. All illustrations on unnumbered pages. Modest wear at the spine label, text block fallen slightly forward, and hinges partially split, still a nice, very good or better volume, with the interior fine.

Authorial Signature of Capt. Kelly dated January 1835. Kelly, about whom we could find little, traveled with "my usual traveling companion Alderman Kelly" on the John Bull Steam Packet to Hamburg. This is followed by a thorough description of their activities and of each of the many localities they visited, with exceptionally detailed remarks on travel, the geography, architecture, population, the paintings and other art displayed in the churches, palaces, and museums, the hotels and their cuisine (or lack of it), weather, observations, and entertainments by the various British consuls.

Capt. Kelly's companion, born Thomas Kelly (1772-1855), was according to at least one source, "a Dick Whittington character," a man who had risen from modest beginnings to be Lord Mayor of London and a respected Alderman. After his father’s bankruptcy in about 1788, Kelly was sent to work at Hoggs, the publisher and bookseller, on Paternoster Row after which he became a noted printer and publisher. He became Lord Mayor of London in 1836, the year following the trip described in this diary, with his official mayoral portrait painted by Mary Martha Pearson in 1837.

A lovely travel diary filled with rich details and personal anecdotes.

Item #85329