Abstract
Discusses John Bristed's "facetious, digressive" memoir, Anthroplanomenos (1803), about a walking tour through the Highlands of lScotland in 1801 by two young students "disguised as American sailors, with little money and no identity papers,” describing their adventures and misadventures as they encountered suspicion, hostility and sometimes surprising kindness; brings out the two travellers’ often-self-contradictory responses to what they saw and experienced; and shows how the tour contributed to their changing political perspective, mirroring the turn away from 1790s radicalism in better-known writers in the same years. An edited version of the 2017 Marilyn Butler Lecture, for the British Association for Romantic Studies,
Recommended Citation
Leask, Nigel
(2019)
"Philosophical Vagabonds: Pedestrianism, Politics, and Improvement on the Scottish Tour,"
Studies in Scottish Literature:
Vol. 45:
Iss.
1, 3–22.
Available at:
https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/ssl/vol45/iss1/2