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A bad tempered guide to the world
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02-06-2008 5:09pm#1In the 1850s miss Favell Lee Mortimer set out to write a guide to all the countries of the world .She was undeterred by the fact that she had never set foot outside shropshire ,she was a mine of information and despised all foreigners equally .Her unintentionally hilarious travel book has now being republished
Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:
A caustic, cranky, and inadvertently hilarious look at foreign countries and their customs by a Victorian woman who rarely left the house.
No matter who your ancestors were, and where they had the misfortune of living, Victorian children's book writer Mrs. Favell Lee Mortimer had something nasty to say about them. Their faults, according to Mrs. Mortimer, might have amounted to just about anything. The Irish "are very kind and good-natured when pleased, but if affronted, are filled with rage." In Italy, "the people are ignorant and wicked." In Sweden, "Nothing useful is well done...The carpenters and the blacksmiths are very clumsy in their work."
and below is her take on the English ( although it could be a lil bit more like the 21rst century irish than 19th century english
(remember it was written a century and a half ago with the author having never set foot outside shropshire England )
The English .
What is the charecter of the English ? They are not very pleasant in company because they do not like strangers .They like best being at home and this is right .They are very much afraid of being cheated ,therefore they are very carful and prudent and slow to trust people till they know them . They are cold in there manners yet they will often do kind actions .
They are fond of money as well as good eating and drinking .They are often low in spirits and are aft to grumble and to wish they were richer than they are and to speak against the rulers of the land .
And the Irish ?
Rags.This is the dress of the poor irish .They do not mend their clothes so the holes get larger and larger .Their coats are made of a grey wollen cloth called ' frieze' and they are worn till they drop of the back .First one tail of the coat comes off then the other and then the sleeves disappear till at lenght , nothing but a heap of rags remain
http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=62-158234504x-00
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