Abstract
Whereas scholarship on London literary tourism has tended to focus on the Victorian Age and early twentieth century, this essay locates the origins of the practice in the Romantic period, linking it specifically to the Cockney familiar essay as cultivated by Leigh Hunt. Beginning in the 1820s but continuing throughout his career, Hunt published numerous essays on London's literary and memorial charms. Recognizing a persistent demand for Londoniana in the marketplace, he depicted the metropolis as a realm of friendly literary ghosts and endless associative layers. In doing so, he helped create the expandable yet walkable London (still with us) of the literary tourist. This essay aims to provide a sense of how Hunt as a Romantic essayist and virtual tour guide came to be read by Victorians and by Anglophiles across the Atlantic. Hunt emerges from this discussion as an early and influential theorist of the intersections between real and imaginary travel, a proponent of literary tourism as a means to self-culture, and an under-acknowledged influence on one of Britain's principal heritage industries.
Published Version
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