“Prized by the tourist”: souvenir books in Victorian Scotland

Abstract

Scotland has been a popular tourist destination for over two centuries, with an intensely romantic reputation that persists to this day. This thesis argues that in the mid-Victorian era, this reputation was developed and perpetuated by books published in Scotland as tourist souvenirs. It combines methodologies from literary criticism, literary tourism studies, and book history. It argues that souvenir books were central to a touristic process of semiotic meaning-making, as they provided the foundations for tourist-readers’ retrospective interpretations of their travels. This thesis identifies souvenir books as a distinct genre, with its own publishing and reception history. Chapter One discusses mauchline ware bookbindings, to show how the representational rhetoric used by souvenirs evolved in an increasingly commercial and industrial era. Chapter Two shows that Scottish publishers’ frequent reuse of illustrations in different books perpetuated stereotypes contained in those illustrations. The recycled images also generated a reading community, similar to but distinctly different from communities that coalesced around mass media environments later in the century. Chapter Three focuses on souvenir editions of The Lady of the Lake and Marmion illustrated with photographs. These editions furthered and materialized some of Sir Walter Scott’s work in the poetry, using realistic detail to support romanticized narratives of Scottish history. Chapter Four shows how souvenir books allowed tourists to display cultural capital by associating themselves with Queen Victoria, or by depicting Scottish tourism as an intellectual enterprise. The Unionist attitudes in these souvenirs allowed tourists using them as markers of class identity to simultaneously navigate national identities. Overall, this thesis argues that souvenir books played a crucial role in establishing Scotland’s romantic reputation. It also makes contributions to Scottish publishing history, and provides a model for the analysis of souvenir books that may be useful to studies of other regions or eras.