No comments about Travels with a donkey in the Cevennas (The biographical edition of the works of Robert Louis Stevenson).

No comments about The Invention of Chic: Therese Bonney and Paris Moderne.

No comments about The romance of the Basque Country and the Pyrenees.

No comments about Paris (Photopocket City).

3 comments about Frommer's Irreverent Guide to Paris.

1. The picture on their website is missleading. It is correct for the latest edition, but they sent me the older, out-of-date volume. It was difficult to get a refund, 'cause they insisted that the edition they sent me was as promised. And, only reluctantly, refunded my return postage. Buy.com has the correct volume.



2. Frommer's Irreverent Guide series sometimes reads like a hyperactive child's breakfast with its FAQ style, but there's some good stuff in there. The book is honest about attractions or restaurants that are just plain dives or tourist traps despite their reputations. Likewise, the good is also recognized for example with one restaurant receiving praise for its service as "a cross between a classical ballet and a Prussian artillery troop drill." I've found the Irreverent Guides to be particularly well suited to perusing before a trip to get excited about where you're going with some great out-of-the-way places receiving praise. This particular guide is great for its breadth across Paris' vast geography as well. Paris is a city composed of villages each with its own character and "scene". Their honest portrayals and diverse categories makes the task of deciding where to stay, dine, and explore easier.



3. This book isn't nourishing, but it provides a certain short-lived fun. I wouldn't go as far as "guilty pleasure" fun, as it isn't that naughty or silly, and it certainly doesn't have the quality of a song from your teen years, in that it is possible, quite possible, to get it out of your head; it's more on the order of that annoying kid in your freshman dorm who couldn't stop wisecracking. You snicker, but it's just not particularly useful. My sense is that this book gives you the illusion of being an insider without actually giving you anything particularly clever, to say nothing of anything that you wouldn't get from another more conventional guide-book. It's not a bad book, and the information is correct as far as it goes, but you will get more real scope for your outsider attitude from a close reading of the mainstream Frommer's, and even more from the Eyewitness guides.

No comments about 2007 Caravan & Camping France (Lifestyle Guides).

No comments about Mont Blanc Walks (Cicerone Guide).

2 comments about Cambridgeshire (Pimlico County History Guides).

1. I never knew that Cambridgeshire had such a long historical connection with Holland.



2. The story of the University has no doubt been told many times, but to find out about the loss of King Johns treasure, and the draining of the fens, was fascinating.

No comments about Pudlo Paris 2009-2010.

5 comments about Domestic Manners of the Americans.

1. This is an extremely entertaining commentary on American manners and well written. I agree, however, with Mrs. Trollope's son, Anthony, who commented that Mrs. Trollope is a keen observer but she understands little. Certainly her complaints about the lack of gentility among Americans is valid but she completely missed the wonderful lack of class restraints endemic to English society which afforded Americans "class mobility"--freedom of opportunity (except for native Americans and slaves).



2. Very entertaining read of the author's trip through 19th Century America, full of wonderful description and enlightening observations. Despite the griping below, Mrs Trollope simply reports what she sees - men spitting tobacco on the floor, ladies off in another room while the guys have a good time, etc. She reports accurately on our forefathers' rugged pioneer spirit, but points out the lack of education everywhere. We want to shout "lies!" but Mark Twain wrote about the same thing, and the aspects of our society that haven't changed much are still being commented on with the same frankness by writers like Saul Bellow, Gore Vidal, Dawn Powell, Paul Theroux and Joan Didion. Many true-hearted Americans will enjoy this book no end. Mrs Trollope clearly loved America and simply wrote truthfully about; she is simply beholden to no one - the essence of good writing. A thoroughly refreshing read.



3. This is both a great read and an important historical document. Fanny Trollope was the mother of Anthony Trollope, perhaps the most prolific English novelist of the nineteenth century and my favorite. Fanny's husband was ineffectual in the breadwinning department, but fortunately for the family, Fanny herself was energetic and enterprising. She took one of her sons (not Anthony) and an artistic young man to the United States. She was planning to join a friend of hers who was a mover in setting up the utopian community in Harmony, Indiana, but the place turned out to be squalid, and she didn't stay long.

   Fanny spent most of her time in the U.S. in Cincinnati and in her book is very hard on the city and its inhabitants. She especially objected to the pigs' role as garbage collectors. (In those days, pigs roamed the streets freely, like sheep grazing.) Fanny felt most of the people she encountered were loud, dirty, vulgar, and fanatically patriotic. It is her vivid descriptions of the physical conditions and the people that give this book its historical and entertainment value.

   While she was living in Cinci, she opened a retail emporium and filled it with rather shoddy merchandise sent from England by her husband. She also attempted to bring culture to the inhabitants. Not surprisingly, both ventures failed.

   After Mrs. Trollope returned to England, she supported her family by writing novels that were quite popular at the time, though they haven't become the classics her son's have. She spent her final years living in Italy with another son and his wife.




4. All I can say is: what a great read! Who knew? Quite frankly, upon first sight of this book I must admit a bit of dread as the puritanical artwork does not smack of fun and games. Of course, as a literature student, I should know better than to ever judge a book by its cover.
   Had I been Fanny Trollope writing such an account of America in the 1820s, I would be hardpressed to say that I would have changed a single word. Trollope has been the victim of many mean spirited caricatures and accusations by Americans and it still continues today, but what is interesting is that no one can do more than attack her person. In other words, no one seems to be able to refute her claims.
   Trollope's "bitchiness" seems, for the most part, merited by my standards and while she finds much to complain about concerning an American democracy in its adolescence, she certainly discovers just as many things that she likes or finds beautiful.
   Plain and simple, Americans collectively have a hard time taking criticism, especially from an outsider...and at that time, political criticism from a woman was deemed absurd if not audacious.
   Last but not least, Fanny Trollope is always sure to preface anything she says with the conscious realization that she can only speak for what she has seen/heard personally and is thereby not judging ALL of America.
   Trollope is witty and anecdotal and I think anyone interested in what an outspoken Englishwoman had to say about the New World should certainly pick up a copy. I found particular interest in gender/religious issues but got the most laughs out of her descriptions of American manners (or the lack thereof).
   It is always interesting to see how much things have changed, and better yet, how many things have remained exactly the same!



5. Fanny Trollope (1779-1863) wrote over 35 novels and several non-fictions books in her effort to rescue her family from poverty. However, the most read of all her books is "Domestic Manners of the Americans" which she published in 1832. It was in that distant year that Fanny and two of her children traveled across the Atlantic Ocean. Her purpose was to join a utopian community in Tennessee whose denizens were freed slaves.
   Fanny left her impecunious and feckless husband the barrister Thomas Trollope back home in England. Her famous son Anthony did not make the trip as he was a student at Harrow School. Fanny knew her husband would join her in the USA when money became available. Later the family would flee to Bruges to escape creditors. Fanny eventually lived out her life in Florence near her son Thomas Trollope.
   After leaving Tennessee the Trollopes settled for two years in the Queen City of the West Cincinnati, Ohio. Fanny did not like America or the American people! She found us xenephobic; boastful, prideful and violent.She hated the hypocrisy of life in Midwest Ohio although she did attend such cultural attractions as opera, plays and lectures. She favored the state Anglican Church of Great Britain not caring for America's separation between church and state.
   This book could well be read alongside Charles Dickens' "American Notes for General Circulation" based on his 1842 six month trip to the USA.
   Both Trollope and Dickens found the Americans crude, lacking in manners
   and eager to make a quick buck. Listen to Trollope at her most scathing:
   "..among the rich and the poor, in the slave states, and in the free states...I do not like them. I do not like their principals, I do not like their manners, I do not like their opinions." (p.314).
   Fanny Trollope's book is more interesting than Dickens since she discusses colorful characters and shares anecdotes about her sojourn in our young republic. Like Dickens she hates the odious practice of tobacco chewing and the mangling of the English language. Trollope found us Yankees to be too serious and viewing us as poorly read. Unlike the wealthy and famous Dickens, Mrs. Trollope was a middle-aged woman fighting off poverty with her pen. I enjoyed her descriptions of nature such as those she paints of the Potomac River, Northern Virginia and the Niagra Falls area in New York and Canada. She is aware of flora and fauna and describes them with knowledge and in beautiful prose.
   Dickens and Trollope give us the eye to see America in the days prior to the Civil War when the curse of chattel slavery ruled the land. Since those days America has granted freedom to all citizens. I wish both Fanny and Charles could visit us again in the 21st century. Their remarks would be of great interest to this reviewer and countless others!