New Improved Travel Writing!
by NIH travel editor, Deon Scant
(Originally published in January 2001)
The library at NIH occupies an entire imposing wing of our sprawling global headquarters. In its vast collection we recently discovered a copy of Rollo in London by the important nineteenth-century American author, Jacob Abbott.
Abbott was a Congregationalist minister who wrote a large number of instructional books for children in the nineteenth century. Rollo in London was published in 1858, and is part of a series of at least 23 books whose central character is Rollo, an American boy. Nine of these books concern, as does Rollo in London, Rollo's travels in Europe at the age of twelve.
I have been assigned the job of updating this book for republication. In the NEW IMPROVED Rollo in London, the quaint world of the nineteenth century will be replaced by the modern now à go go world of the twenty-first.
For a start, the engravings will have to be replaced. The engravings in the 1858 edition, for example, depict a world in which dandyism is not yet dead. The men sport tight pants and big hair. These engravings will be replaced by illustrations of men, women, and children in colourful and lightweight sports attire with prominently displayed corporate logos.
Rollo is depicted as a child of privilege, but the nineteenth-century conception of privilege was different to ours. Rollo is privileged simply because he doesn't have to work. Other children in the book include a pilot's assistant on a riverboat, a shop assistant, crossing sweepers, and a street entertainer.
While Rollo doesn't have to work, he is expected to exercise a degree of responsibility which would not be expected of most twelve-year-olds today. For example, he is responsible for all his own travel expenses. The money is an allowance from his father, but Rollo is responsible for keeping it safe (he is forced at one point in the book to decide if he was unreasonably careless when his pocket was picked) and for paying for all his expenses. He also is allowed to retain any savings, so he travels in a lower class on the train than the uncle who accompanies him to London.
Rollo does not play or engage in other childish pursuits. He is treated like an adult by his uncle George, albeit as an inexperienced one, and is expected to behave and think like an adult (when deciding whether to buy a watch chain he is expected to calculate the interest income he will lose by using part of his capital to buy jewellery). In the contemporary version, of course, time will be made for Rollo to enjoy the modern pastimes of watching television, playing video games, and hanging out at malls. The fun of shopping will be emphasized rather than exercises in accounting.
The modern version will also place less emphasis on religion. Well, it will place no emphasis on it at all, actually. Rollo's Uncle George is the type of guy whose idea of a high old time is to attend services at Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's on the same day. In the modern version he'll be crazy about sports, instead.
The 1858 book plays a little fast and loose with the facts. For example, Westminster Abbey is described as a cathedral, and it is implied that the Palace of Westminster was built much later than the Abbey. The book also fails to tell us much about London.
While Rollo and Uncle George visit Westminster Abbey, the new Houses of Parliament are not mentioned. Similarly, the recently built Trafalgar Square is not mentioned, although Abbott refers to the junction of the Strand with Charing Cross, and Rollo and Uncle George lodge behind Northumberland House, which stood at what is now the entry to Northumberland Avenue.
The only traditional sights which are described are the Abbey, St. Paul's, St. James's Park, London Bridge, the Horse Guards, and the docks. Rollo and Uncle George also visit Woolwich Tunnel, then a prototypical shopping mall and today, I believe, a tunnel for an Underground line. The British Museum is mentioned but not described, and the National Gallery is not even mentioned.
The point of the 1858 book, however, is not to describe points of interest so much as to teach young people how to travel. Long passages describe how to find and engage rooms, how to order breakfast, and how to find your way in a strange city. Complicated analyses of expense management are also provided. As I have already mentioned, Rollo is expected to treat buying a watch chain as an exercise in accounting. Rollo and Uncle George also give each other markers for any small sums they lend each other, so that misunderstandings do not arise.
In a broader sense, the 1858 book is about being an individual. It encourages young people to be independent and to evaluate all their experiences according to the material benefits they produce. Today, though, we have a completely different way of looking at the world and at travelling in it.
In 1858, Rollo and Uncle George lived in a world in which personal freedom was not a widespread characteristic. Abbott blithely assumes, as I'm sure everyone of his time did, that when a man and a woman travel together the man is in charge of the woman. When Uncle George discourses on the promotion of equality by American democracy, he omits to mention the existence of slavery. I have already mentioned that Rollo is privileged in not having to work at the age of twelve. The Rollo of 1858 lived in a world in which only a few people could have freedom, and in which it was important to take full advantage of any opportunity you had to enjoy this state.
The Rollo of 2001 will live in a world which has gone beyond freedom. Having attained political equality, we have moved on to improving our new free selves, leaving politics to be looked after by the politicians. Rollo and Uncle George are going to be spending a lot of time looking for enriching experiences with people of diverse backgrounds. Rollo will have a relationship, as we say these days, with a former Spice Girl. Uncle George will come out of the closet. And, like every visitor to the London of today, they'll pay through the nose for the privilege.
New Improved Travel Writing! © John FitzGerald, 2001
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