When I heard
that a young American writer had published a book about
traveling to Europe based on a
battered 1963 copy of Frommer’s “Europe on $5 a day “, I
figured it was time to take a look at the shelves of vintage
guidebooks and travel literature I have collected over the past 50 years.
For travel writers and historians, there is
nothing as interesting as old guides and travel books. Here
are some
of the gems in my collection. Most were
paid only a few dollars ( or lire, or euro) but their values today may range up to
several hundred dollars.
 |
| signed by author Lina Waterfield, (Duff Gordon) 1914 |
One of
the most intriguing is this one, by the same author
who wrote “To Catch a Thief”. The guide published in
1953 contains such gems as “a banquet for four can be had for $2.67 in
Spain” and “a bicyclist can tour Europe on $1.40 a day”.
It was a clever way to encourage
Americans to travel abroad just as the Marshall
Plan was helping Europe get back on its feet.
For the
beginning collector, there are many
opportunities to pick up bargains
in the strangest places,
especially when travelling.
Older books in
English are generally less valued in non-English speaking
countries.
I picked
up this 1951 travelogue in its original
dust wrapper at an open air
stall in Naples for
10 euro. A Canadian book
seller lists the same book, without dust
wrapper, at 128 euro!
 |
| from UK dealer Peter M. Daly for 17£ |
Thanks to
the Gutenberg project many vintage guides can be downloaded for free and read on your iPad or Kindle device.
An example is a travelogue by Edward Wigran “Northern
Spain” (1906), full of interesting
facts about Asturian villages
with colorful illustrations.
A copy of the original will put you back $195,
if you can find it.
To discover
the value of your vintage guides
and travel books, make a search on the websites such as abebooks, alibris, biblio and addall.
Other
sources for finding old and vintage travel books and guides are
these websites: oldguidebooks, manybooks.net. as well as the thousands of Italian
booksellers who list on the mega site maremagnum.
The study
of travel literature, Hodoeporics, is fast becoming
a specialized branch of Italian language and literature studies.
Check
out the website of
the CIRVI, Centro Interuniversitario di Ricerche sul Viaggio in Italia which
is based in Moncalieri , near Torino for more
information about travel writing
and literature .
Please share with friends (use the Facebook, Twitter and Google+ buttons ) and don't forget to let me know what special treasures you have found.
