Bradshaw's guide

This collection brings together city plans issued in various editions of Bradshaw’s Continental Railway, Steam Transit, &...

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This collection brings together city plans issued in various editions of Bradshaw’s Continental Railway, Steam Transit, &c. Guide and General Handbook, the indispensable companion to nineteenth-century European travel. George Bradshaw first published a railway timetable in 1839, and his name soon became synonymous with journey planning. The Continental guide, launched in 1847, expanded beyond timetables to combine rail and steamship connections with practical advice, hotel information, descriptions of sights and engraved plans of the principal cities. Produced as Europe’s railway network transformed the speed and scale of travel, these maps chart both the growth of modern tourism and the changing urban landscape: stations, boulevards, monuments and historic centres are presented for the travelling public. Bradshaw’s enduring appeal has been revived on television by Michael Portillo, who carries a 1913 edition throughout BBC’s Great Continental Railway Journeys, using it to retrace historic routes and compare Edwardian Europe with the present day.

This collection brings together city plans issued in various editions of Bradshaw’s Continental Railway, Steam Transit, &c. Guide and General Handbook, the indispensable companion to nineteenth-century European travel. George Bradshaw first published a railway timetable in 1839, and his name soon became synonymous with journey planning. The Continental guide, launched in 1847, expanded beyond timetables to combine rail and steamship connections with practical advice, hotel information, descriptions of sights and engraved plans of the principal cities. Produced as Europe’s railway network transformed the speed and scale of travel, these maps chart both the growth of modern tourism and the changing urban landscape: stations, boulevards, monuments and historic centres are presented for the travelling public. Bradshaw’s enduring appeal has been revived on television by Michael Portillo, who carries a 1913 edition throughout BBC’s Great Continental Railway Journeys, using it to retrace historic routes and compare Edwardian Europe with the present day.

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