Spanish Travels Volume 1

I've always been a fan of nineteenth-century travel narratives in English. They make comparisons that reveal more about England or the US than they do about the country visited. They don't avoid showing their awe or their disgust. They're resolutely opinionated and unabashedly judgmental. In other words, their perspective makes the book.

In spite of all that, someone reading these narratives today can learn a lot about the Spain of the time: history, politics, customs, economic conditions an...