Victorian Periodicals Review

Abstract:

This essay argues that Murray's European Handbooks for Travellers, while not typically understood as a periodical venue for poetry, readapted the already portable form of the verse extract to newly emerging textual, social, and technological networks of travel. Including statistical background on poetic content over the lifespan of the Murray guides, the essay examines how regular revision and reissue placed poetry in dynamic relationship with its evolving prose contexts, mirroring other periodicals consumed in transit. Poetry's endurance in Murray's guides signaled an urge to develop more sustainable forms of travel even at the dawn of the modern travel industry.