Continental Journal, early 19th century

Journal compiled by an unnamed English traveller on the Continent, with a special interest in hospitals and other medical institutions. The anonymous author, who was no doubt a medical student or practitioner, left London on 11 September 1818 and travelled via Dover and Calais to Paris, arriving there on 15 September; he left Paris on 21 of that month and went via Dijon and the Jura to Geneva, Lausanne, Berne and Neuchâtel, before heading over the Simplon Pass to Milan, which was reached on 20 October. He next headed south via Pavia to Genoa, where he took a steamer to Marseilles, and then headed back north via Avignon and Lyons to Paris, which he reached on 15 November 1818. He then spent over a month in Paris, before heading home via Rouen to Dieppe, for a Channel crossing to Brighton. Dating throughout is in the Quaker style. From the outset the author was accompanied by a fellow traveller, Benjamin Dockray; at Geneva they joined a third English-speaking traveller, John Griscom, who accompanied the author as far as Paris; Dockray meanwhile had left the party at Genoa.

1818

2 volumes and 3 wrappers Incomplete.

Purchased at Phillips sale, 30 June 2000, lot 352.

John Griscom, an American lawyer and Quaker, published an account of his European travels, from which it is clear that the author of this journal was a young Mancunian physician and fellow Quaker, John Sims (MD Edinburgh 1818), see John Griscom, A year in Europe, comprising a journal of observations in England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Switzerland, the north of Italy and Holland 2 vols (New York, 1823), vol. i., p.360.

Database description transcribed from Richard Aspin and Christopher Hilton's typescript supplement to S.A.J Moorat's Catalogue of Western Manuscripts