The Road to the Isles

A wonderfully evocative account of the Hebrides, drawn from the journals and memoirs of intrepid travellers and from the author's many personal journeys in these remarkable islands.

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Before 1770, the island of the Hebrides were virtually unvisited by outsiders. Remote and inaccessible, they were, in Dr Johnson's words, as unknown as Borneo or Sumatra. Then, partly as a result of the success of Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides and Johnson's A Journey to the Hebrides, they became a magnet for travellers from all over Europe. Scott, Keats, Mendelssohn, Turner, Wordsworth and others made the long journey north and were inspired and astonished by the worlds they entered. Many other 19th century travellers took the road to the Isles and wrote accounts of their adventures. In this delightful book, Derek Cooper has recreated a kaleidoscope of life in the Hebrides in those days. His story begins in 1770, in the days of smuggling and press gangs, and ends in the summer of 1914 with the shooting lodges closing their shutters and the glittering steam yachts sailing south to become fleet auxiliaries in the First World War.