This was a major AHRC-funded project based on a collaboration between Professor Carol Tully, School of Languages, Literatures, Linguistics, Dr Kathryn Jones from Swansea University and Dr Heather Williams from the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies (CAWCS). The project has uncovered a vast number of travel accounts to Wales in this period, the majority of which are written in French or German. Many of the accounts that are listed in the database were ‘hidden’ in writing about tours in England. ‘European Travellers’ investigated an array of sources including travelogues, guidebooks, diaries, letters and blogs, in both manuscript and printed form. The researchers discovered a broad variety of reasons for European travellers to have come to Wales: from those seeking a romantic idyll, to industrial spies in the Victorian era and refugees from Nazi Germany. This helps us understand Wales better: stories of refugees and exiles have emerged, and a store of detailed descriptions of Welsh landscapes, buildings and ruins has emerged. These are completely new resources for studying Wales, and broaden travel writing to encompass more than English-language portrayals of Wales. http://etw.bangor.ac.uk/welcome.
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