A Grand Tour Journal 1820-1822 (Hardback)

This is the first ever publication of the recently discovered manuscript of the Grand Tour journal (1820–22) by Edward Geoffrey Stanley, later 14th earl of Derby (1799–1869) and a future three-time prime minister. Stanley started his diary in Florence in December 1820 and concluded it at his family seat of Knowsley Hall, Lancashire, in July 1822. He mostly travelled through Italy at a period of great political turmoil, mostly sightseeing around Rome and Naples but also at Venice and Milan, where he moved in the highest social circles. He met members of the papal Curia, Napoleon’s exiled family in Rome, and the family of the king of Naples alongside diplomats and fellow Britons on the Grand Tour. He also travelled across the Abruzzi mountains of Central Italy and throughout the Swiss Alps and the Italian Lakes before returning home through Germany down the Rhine. In these journals, Stanley reveals himself to be inquisitive and diligent as well as courageous and decisive. They show the awakening of the young man with a burgeoning sense of political and social justice.