About this Item
Quarto measuring 8.5" x 11". 90 leaves, typed rectos only. Black cloth over stiff paper boards with gilt titled. Contains 55 postcards and 45 commercial photographs measuring between 2" x 3" and 3" x 5" with captions. Very good album with near fine contents. A travel journal illustrated with pictorial postcards and commercial photographs compiled by Beulah Marjorie Pearce in 1930. Pearce titled her album "A Dash Through Europe" and begins with a forward that reads, in part, "Europe can be done in a few weeks. How thoroughly seventy-two days of dashing here and there with only over-night stops in which one is fortunate if she accomplishes the washing of a pair of hose and the pressing of the other blouse to the black satin suit before moving on how thoroughly it can be done is another matter." She continues, "in seventy-two days, the members of my party covered the ground that has supported the events of the last two thousand years; we visited in rapid succession age old castles, battle grounds famous for centuries, cathedrals erected through years of toil and taxes…. from the north of Ireland to the south of Italy, we rushed in seventy-two days." Pearce writes about the "revelations for the American visitor" explaining that her companions expected "to find a broken down continent swarming with desolate people anxious to journey to our golden American." She also mentions the people, sights, and attractions seen over her "dash" of a trip. When discussing cuisine she writes, "the most startling revelation of all, however, was in connection with the food. The English ruin more good food than we could imagine….In France everything floats in grease." Over two pages she details the complete itinerary which began in Ireland, Scotland, and England in June; Holland and Belgium in the beginning of July; Germany and Switzerland; Austria and Italy; and finally Switzerland and France in August. "We left out good American coffee and apple pie behind us at Montreal on Friday, June 13, 1930, on the S.S. Letitia, bound for Belfast, Ireland. We returned to our newly appreciate American pies and coffee on the S.S. Berengaria, sailing for Cherbourg, France on August 16, 1930, and landing at the Fourteenth Street dock in New York City on August 22, 1930." Over the course of 90 typed pages Pearce documents this journey in detail and accompanies her writings with postcards and commercial photographs purchased along the way. Towards the end of the album Pearce muses on the remnants of the recently fought "Great War" in an eerie prediction of things to come. She writes, "our guide, a French officer of engineers, who has been injured at the siege of Verdun in October 1917, told us many tales concerning the soldiers." She continues, "we passed through village after village, each with its own memoires of the horrors of war." Her journal ends in Paris where she writes it was a "relief after our short sojourn among the horrors of war. We spent out last evening together in Paris gaily, not happy in leaving Europe yet looking forward with all pleasure to our journey from Cherbourg home on the Berengaria." A detailed account of a woman s trip through Europe in the years between World Wars.
Seller Inventory # 443704
Contact seller
Report this item
