Bradshaw’s Handbook

A facsimile edition of Bradshaw's Handbook of 1863, the book that inspired the BBC television series 'Great British Railway Journeys'.When Michael Portillo began the series 'Great British Railway Journeys', a well-thumbed 150-year-old book shot back to fame. The original Bradshaw's guides had been well known to Victorian travellers and were produced when the British railway network was at its peak and as tourism by rail became essential. It was the first national tourist guide specifically organized around railway journeys, and this beautifully illustrated facsimile edition offers a glimpse through the carriage window at a Britain long past.

George Bradshaw (1801-1853) was an English cartographer, printer and publisher. He is most famous for developing a series of railway timetables and guides. The books became synonymous with their publisher, so that, for Victorians and Edwardians alike, a railway timetable was 'a Bradshaw'. After his death, Punch magazine said of Bradshaw's labours: 'seldom has the gigantic intellect of man been employed upon a work of greater utility.'

Collector's item, landmark in the history of the tour guide, snapshot of Britain in the 1860s - Bradshaw's Handbook deserves a place on the bookshelf of any traveller, railway enthusiast, historian or anglophile.

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