SS 2004

Department of English, University of Basel
Literature and Culture Studies: Seminar M. Marti

British and American Visitors in Switzerland:

History of Tourism in Switzerland

till 1789 / The Romantics (1789 - 1837) / The Victorians (1837 - 1901) / 20th century

course programme (provisional)

George III
1760-1820

1789

History / Politics:
French Revolution. (cf. Impacts on Britain) Declaration of the Rights of Man. (Déclaration des droits de l'homme).

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Travel Books:
Coxe, William. Travels in Switzerland. (after visits in 1776, 1779, 1785 and 1786)
Heinrich Heidegger, Zürich: Handbuch für Wanderer durch die Schweiz

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Visitors:
Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, completes his education for three years in Geneva. Visits Sir Philip de Loutherbourg in Biel, joins the Masonic Lodge of Geneva.

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Accommodation:
The first guesthouse at Kandersteg: Gasthof "zum Ritter"

1790

Visitors:
William Wordsworth (1770-1850) makes his first extended visit to Switzerland during a summer holiday (cf. Prelude, Book VI). The places he visits are: Geneva, Lausanne, Martigny, Chamonix, Martigny, Sion, Brig, Simplon, Domodossola, Como, San Bernardino, Thusis, Reichenau, Disentis, Oberalp, Andermatt, Altdorf, Lucerne, Zurich, Einsiedeln, Glarus, Walenstadt, Altstätten, Appenzell, Konstanz, Schaffhausen, Lucerne, Brünig, Meiringen, Grindelwald, Lauterbrunnen, Interlaken, Thun, Berne, Neuchâtel, Basel.
See
Wordsworth's route over the Simplon.

1791

Visitors:
Prince Augustus, Duke of Sussex: Lausanne (lives in Ludlow's house, cf. 1660)
A British tourist, Joshua Lucock Wilkinson, gets arrested at Rolle on suspicion of being the escaped Louis XVI.

1791

Sport / Mountaineering:
Horace-Benedict de Saussure climbs Klein Matterhorn

1792

Visitors:
Edward Daniel Clarke (1769-1822) takes the Gotthard route from Basel to Turin. "Our carriages were drawn by oxen and peasants over high mountains of snow, where no European had ever dreamed of meeting a carriage before, among precipices, rocks, torrents and cataracts. The mountaineers beheld us with astonisment, the children ran away from us, and the men could not be kept from the wheels ... in their eagerness to see inside." (de Beer, 94)
During a two years' stay at Neuchâtel, Lord Valentine Lawless Cloncurry meets:
William Beckford, Lord Coleshill, the Duke of Sussex, Lord Boringdon, Lord Morpeth, the Duchess of Devonshire, the Duchess of Ancaster, Lord Carmarthen, Lord Cholmondely, Earl Annesley, Robert Fowler Bishop of Ossory and Lord Robert Fitzgerald (de Beer, p. 98)

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William Gilpin (1724-1804): Three Essays: On Picturesque Beauty; On Picturesque Travel; and On Sketching Landscape

1793

Visitors:
Helen Maria Williams (1762-1827) (see also 1794)
Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, Edward Gibbon, Frederick Augustus Hervey, Lady Elizabeeth Webster, Elizabeth Wynne.

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Albrecht von Haller's Die Alpen published in London (translated by Mrs. Howorth).
Rev. Henry Boyd: The Wanderer, a lyric poem, in four irregular odes.
Travel book:
J. G. Ebel von Züllichau Anleitung auf die nützlichste und genussreichste Art die Schweiz zu bereisen, Zürich, 2 Theile 8.

1794

Visitors:
Helen Maria Williams (1762-1827), together with John Hurtford Stone (released by Robespierre): Basel, Zurich, Lucerne, Altdorf, Gotthard, Bellinzona, Lugano, San Bernardino, Chur, Wallenstadt, Glarus, Engelberg, Zug, Solothurn, Bern, Biol, Neuchatel, Morat, Lausanne, Geneva, Vevey, Sion. (see 1798)
Viktor von Bonstetten, Edward Daniel Clarke, Rowley Lascelles, Lord Lismore, Elizabeth Wynne.

1796

Paintings:
Thomas Wedgwood, first "photographer" visits Lucerne, the Rigi, Brünig and Meiringen.

1797

Napoleon in Basel

1798

France invades Switzerland. Switzerland gets reorganized as "Helvetic Republic" ("Republique Helvetique")

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Transport:
system of national diligences (Eilkutschen) established.

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Travel Book:
Helen Maria Williams (1762-1827): A Tour in Switzerland "The graceful style and the lively imagination of the authoress will never efface the bad impressions, which the revolutionary principles that are held forth in this book, are apt to make on the minds of impartial readers" (Coxe, Travels in Switzerland, vol. III, p. 361)

1799

Neuchâtel remains neutral and takes up refugees from France. Victory of the French troops over General Korsakov's Russian forces at the 2nd Battle of Zurich.

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Literature on Switzerland:
Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Tell's Birthplace, imitated from Stolberg
Travel Book:
Georgina Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire.: Memorandums of the Face of the Country in Switzerland.

1802

The Federalists under Alois Reding regain power in Berne.
Treaty of Amiens signed by Britain, France, Spain, and the Netherlands. Travel to the continent becomes possible during a 14 months' peace.

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Visitors:
Robert Malthus (1766-1834) visits Switzerland, Voltaire and Rousseau.
Heinrich von Kleist settles in Thun.

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Painters:
First of six extended visits to Switzerland by
J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851): Geneva, Chamonix, Aosta, Grand St. Bernard, Martigny, Vevey, Château d'Oex, Saanen, Zweisimmen, Interlaken, Grindelwald, Grosse Scheidegg, Meiringen, Brünig, Lucerne, Altdorf, Andermatt, Zurich, Schaffhausen, Basel. He makes 400 sketches on this tour.

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Literature:
Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
Hymn before Sunrise, in the Vale of Chamouni
Willam Wordsworth:
Thought of a Briton on the Subjugation of Switzerland
Travel Literature:
Coxe, William. Travels in Switzerland and in the Country of the Grisons, in a Series of Letters to William Melmoth, Exq. A New Edition. (3 vol.)

1803

Swiss delegates accept Napoleon's Act of Mediation, replacing the Helvetic Republic by a Swiss Confederation of 19 cantons (6 new cantons)

1804

Napoleon crowns himself as Emperor of France.

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Literature on Switzerland:
Friedrich Schiller: Wilhelm Tell

1805

Battle of Trafalgar: Nelson destroys the French fleet; Napoleon wins the battle Of Austerlitz.

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Entertainment:
Inspirerd by Nicholas Friedrich von Mühlenen, Interlaken organizes its first folk festival (Unspunnenfest), probably the first attempt to launch a resort.

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Transport:
Simplon route is open for coach travel (the first Alpine pass road)

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Willam Wordsworth: Prelude (Book 6: The Alps)

1806

Bergsturz Arth-Goldau landslide costs 457 lives.

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James Montgomery (1771-1854): "The Wanderer of Switzerland"

1807

Willam Wordsworth: "Thought of a Briton on the Subjugation of Switzerland."

1808

Entertainment:
Interlaken's second folk festival (Unspunnenfest) attracts 6,000 visitors (among them princes and counts)
Music festivals organized on the Rigi.

1810

Napoleon imposes a blockade of Switzerland, considering it as the heart of English smuggling in Europe. The Valais is annexed and Napoleon's troops occupy the Ticino and the Alpine passes.

1811

The brothers Meyer ascend Jungfrau and Finsteraarhorn.

1814

Visitors:
Percy Bysshe
Shelley (1792-1822) elopes with Mary (Wollstonecraft) Godwin and her stepsister Claire Clairmont, arriving at Lucerne and Brunnen via Neuchâtel.
Michael Faraday is Sir Humphry Davy's valet and ammanuensis on a tour through Domodossola, Simplon, Brig, Sion, Martigny, Geneva, Lausanne, Vevey, Payerne, Berne, Zurich, Schaffhausen.
Caroline, Princess of Wales, and unhappy wife of the future King George IV, tours the continent and visits Basel, Moutier, Berne, Lausanne, Geneva, Chamonix, Geneva, Lausanne, Martigny, Sion, Brig, Simplon, Domodossola. She continues her tour through Italy, Greece, Ephesus, and Jerusalem while the
Prince Regent is at home enjoying his mistresses.
Other tourists in this year: Richard Boyle Bernard, Sir David Brewster, Charles Lennox Cumming Bruce, Stratford Canning, Lady Charlotte Bury, Edward Coplestone, Sir Henry Holland, Sir James Mackintosh, John Mayne, John Milford, Samuel Rogers, James Thomas Townley Tisdall, General Sir Robert Wilson.

1815

Switzerland gets its perpetual neutrality guaranteed at the Congress of Vienna. The confederation consits now of 22 cantons (Geneva, Valais and Neuchâtel as new cantons).
Upon Napoleon's return from Elba the Swiss cantons split: Vaud and Aargau are Bonapartist, Basel and Geneva neutral, Berne for the allies.

1816

Visitors:
Lord Byron stays mainly at the Lake of Geneva and makes excursions around the lake, but but he also visits Basel, Lucerne, Bern, Murten, Château d'Oex, Saanen, Zweisimmen, Interlaken, Lauterbrunnen, Grindelwald, Meiringen, Thun, Berne, Fribourg, Sion, Brig, Simplon, Domodossola.
P.B. Shelley, Mary (Wollstonecraft) Godwin and Claire Clairmont stay at the Hotel de Sécheron, Geneva, where they meet Lord Byron and his physician and friend John Polidori. Together they settle down for the summer at Cologny. Byron lives at the Villa Diodati, the Shelleys in a house nearby (see: Ghost story session). Works written at that time include: Shelley: Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, Mary Shelley: Frankenstein, Byron: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Manfred, The Prisoner of Chillon, Polidori: The Vampyre. Claire gets a child by Byron.
The scandalous group attracts other tourists and the proprietor of the Hotel d'Angleterre erects a telescope, so that they can watch Byron's window for a small charge. (Wraight, p. 214).
James Cockburn makes an extended tour. He is said to have been the first to use a camera lucida in making his drawings and sketches in the alps.
Other British tourists in this year: Sir Archibald Alison, Andrew Bell, Lord Henry Brougham, Lady de Clifford, Edward Coplestone, W. E. Frye, Robert Haldane, John Cam. Hobhouse, Thomas Hookham, Thomas Langton, Matthew Gregory (Monk) Lewis, Sir Roderick Murchison, John Playfair, Adam Sedgwick, Richard Sharp, Lady Francis Shelley, John Sheppard, Lord Tignmouth, Hugh William Williams.

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Mary Shelley: Frankenstein.
P.B. Shelley:
Mont Blanc. Lines written in the Vale of Chamouni

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Accommodation:
Chamonix: first luxury hotel (The Hotel de l'Union), followed by 'la Couronne' and 'le Royal'

1817

Visitors:
Henry Venn Elliott: "As for the Hotel on the Righi, the Accommodations were sufficiently miserable..."
Robert Southey: "Were I to settle anywhere on the continent, Switzerland should be the country, and probably Lausanne the place."
Other visitors include: W. E. Frye, Thomas Langton, John Playfair, Thomas Raffles, Stewart Rose, John Barber Scott, George Ticknor, Jane Waldie, Samuel Miller Waring, Stephen Weston.

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Literature on Switzerland:
Mary and Percy Bysshe Shelley.
History of a Six Weeks' Tour.
Byron's
Manfred published. Its description of Wengen, Scheidegg and Grindelwald glaciers spreads the fame of the Bernese Oberland throughout Britain.

1818

Transport:
Mr. B. Emery of Charing Cross begins to organise group tours to Switzerland by stage coach. Each tour is limited to six persons with 50 kg of luggage each. They have two days in Paris and fourteen days in Switzerland, stoppping each night at a different place. All-inclusive price: 20 Guineas. The tours were continued for several years. (Wraight, p. 218)

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Travel Books:
Robert Glutz-Blotheim: Revision of Heidegger's Handbuch (1789) combined with Ebel's Anleitung (1793)
Poetry:
Sir Walter Scott, The Battle of Sempach

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Visitors:
Edmund Kean visits Geneva, Martigny, Grand St. Bernard.
Edward Duke of Kent (Queen Victoria's father) spends his honeymoon in Berne, Thun, Interlaken, Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald.
Other tourists: Sir Archibald Alison, Capt. Basil Hall, Sir Charles Lyell, Henry Matthews, Thomas Medwin, John Murray, John Scott, Edward Stanley, Samuel Miller Waring.

1819

Travel Books:
Daniel Wall, The Traveller's Guide through Switzerland.
Samuel Miller Waring The Traveller's Fireside. A Series of papers on Switzerland, the Alps, etc. containing information and descriptions, original and selected from French and Swiss authors.

George IV
1820-1830

1820

Paintings:
James Pattison Cockburn: Swiss Scenery (drawings and engravings)

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Visitors:
William Wordsworth retraces his earlier tour [cf. 1790] with his wife Dorothy: Schaffhausen, Zurich, Aarburg, Herzogenbuchsee, Bern, thun, Interlaken, Lauterbrunnen, Grindelwald, Meiringen, Brünig, Engelberg, Lucerne, Rigi, Altdorf, amsteg, Hospenthal, St. Gotthard, Airolo, Bellinzona, Locarnon, Luino, Ponte Tresa, Lugano, Como, Milan, Domodossola, Simplon, Brig, Sion, Martigny, Chamonix, Villeneuve, Lausanne, Geneva.
Dorothy is delighted, but William complains about the effects of tourism in a letter to Trelawney: "As to the arbitrary, pitiless, godless wretches, who have removed Nature's landmakrs by cutting roads through Alps and Appenines, until all things are reduced to the same dead level, they will be arraigned hereafter with the unjust." (de Beer, 156)
Other visitors: R. Bakewell, Mary Berry, Marianne Colston, J. J. Coulmann, Kenelm Henry Digby, Maria Edgeworth, Thomas Medwin, Henry Crabb Robinson, Edward John Trelawny, Stephen Weston.

1821

Mountaineering:
The guides of
Chamonix form themselves into a corporation with fixed tariffs for climbs ('La Compagnie des Guides').

1823

Visitors:
John Philip Kemble (1757-1823), actor and theatre manager, dies in Lausanne.

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Rodolphe Töpffer starts a school of his own at Geneva for boys of every nationality. Each summer the holidays take the form of a walking tour in the alps to which he writes and illustrate an account.

1824

Transport:
Guillaume Tell (steam boat on Lake Geneva).
The routes over San Bernardino and Splugen are open for coach traffic.

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Literature on Switzerland:
Bernard Barton ( 1784-1849): To Switzerland

1825

Visitors:
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) makes a literary pilgrimage to the scenes depicted by Rousseau in La nouvelle Heloise. Domodossola, Simplon, Brig, Sion, Martigny, Bex, Vevey, Col de Balme, Basel, Chamonix, Geneva, Lausanne, Vevey, Yverdon, Neuchâtel, Biel, Moutier.
The first tourist ever sighted in the Saas Valley (Valais) is an Englishman, William Brockedon.
Other tourists in this year: Edmund Clark and Markham Sherwill, George Downes, Thomas Jefferson Hogg, Victor Hugo, Thomas Medwin, John Murray, Colonel Moyle Sherer, Seth William Stevenson.

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Paintings:
Richard Parkes Bonington: La Place du Molard, Geneva; The Bridge of St. Maurice, Valais.
"Switzerland in Miniature", a model by M. A. Gaudin, is exhibited at the Egyptian Hall in Picadilly.

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Literature on Switzerland:
Mark Lemon (1809-1870): Arnold of Winkelried or: The Fight of Sempach! A Drama in Five Acts.

1826

Transport:
Steamboats: "Leman" (280 tons, Lake of Geneva); "Verbano" (Lago Maggiore)
Julier pass opened for traffic to the Engadine.

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Visitors:
Benjamin Disraeli visits Geneva, Martigny, Sion, Brig, Simplon, Domodossola.
Other tourists: Mrs. Bodington,
Richard Parkes Bonington, John Carne, N. H. Carter, Thomas Erskine, James David Forbes, Charles James La Trobe, William Thomson, Clarissa Trant, Walter Weever.

1827

Visitors:
William Liddiard (author of a travel book, see 1832) visits Geneva, Chamonix, Martigny, Vevey, Lausanne, Murten, Berne, Thun, Interlaken, Lauterbrunnen, Grindelwald, Meiringen, Brünig, Lucerne, Rigi, Altdorf, Andermatt, St. Gotthard, Altdorf, Brunnen, Schwyz, Einsiedeln, Lucerne, Willisau.
Other tourists: Henry Angelo, John Auldjo, John Ball, John Carne, Sir Charles Fellows, Robert Gray, J.D. Sinclair, Richard Twining, Weever Walter, Sir David Wilkie.

1828

Visitors:
James Fenimore Cooper makes the "full" tour: Les Verrieres, Neuchâtel, Berne, Thun, Interlaken, Lauterbrunnen, Grindelwald, Meiringen, Berne, Baden, Schaffhausen, Rorschach, Altstätten, Gais, St. Gallen, Herisau, Zurich, Albis, Zug, Rigi, Lucerne, Langnau, Brienz, Brünig, Stans, Brunnen, Schwyz, Einsiedeln, Glarus, Walenstadt, Chur, Disentis, Oberalp, Andermatt, Furka, Grimsel, Lausanne, Geneva, Martigny, Sion, Brig, Simplon, Domodossola.
Other visitors: Yeats Brown, John Cam Hobhouse (Lord Broughton), Earl of Malmesbury, Thomas Maude.

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Sir Walter Scott: Anne of Geierstein (a "Swiss" novel, describing the battles of Buttisholz, Grandson and Murten)

1830

Accommodation:
First hotel in Montreux.
English church established at Pully (near Lausanne)

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Transport: Gotthard can be crossed by coach

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Mountaineering:
Zermatt: Lord Minto and his son climb the Breithorn with guides from Chamonix.

William IV
1830-1837

 

1832

Fights against the industrialisation of Switzerland: Maschinensturm in Uster (Anti-Machine riot by weavers)

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Visitors:
James Fenimore Cooper: Schaffhausen, Zurich, Einsiedeln, Schwyz, Lucerne, Brünig, Meiringen, Interlaken, Lauterbrunnen, Grindelwald, Thun, Berne, Murten, Vevey, Martigny, Grand St. Bernard, Geneva.

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Travel Book:
William Liddiard (1773-1841): Three Months' Tour in Switzerland and France.

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Accommodation:
St. Moritz: Inauguration of the first bath house using the source's mineral water. It features bathing rooms and a drinking hall as its principal amenities, but no accommodation for the night.

1833

Basel: Civil war between Basel Stadt and Land

Paintings:
William Henry Fox Talbot (1807-77) sketches the Swiss mountains from Lake Como with the help of a camera lucida, developping the first real camera.

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Visitors:
Ralph Waldo Emerson: Domodossola, Simplon, Brig, Sion, Martigny, Geneva: "To oblige my companions, and protesting all the way upon the unworthiness of his memory, I went to Ferney." (de Beer, p. 290)
John Ruskin: Schaffhausen, Chur, Thusis, Splügen, Chiavenna, Milano, Aosta, Grand St. Bernard, Martigny, Vevey, Berne, Thun, Interlaken, Lucerne, Zurich, Baden, Basel, Geneva, Chamonix.
On the way to Basel the Ruskins run into the civil war between Basel Stadt and Baselland.
Lord Edward Bulwer Lytton: Geneva, Coppet, Clarens, Evian, Villeneuve, Martigny.
Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803-49), banished from Bavaria, settles permanently in Switzerland: First in Zurich, then in Basel. (1844)

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Accommodation:
Zurich: Johannes Bauer founds a restaurant (which will later become the Baur au Lac, see 1833)

1834

Accommodation:
Hôtel des Bergues (Geneva) built on the shore of the Lake of Geneva. One of its founders is the later General Henri Dufour

1835

Transport:
First sailings on the Lake of Thun on "
PS Bellevue", Lake of Zurich: "Minerva".
"Gotthardpost": Basel - Milano

1835

Tourism:
Mr Emery's tours to Switzerland cost 20 pounds, it takes ten days to get from London to Basel.
Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803-49) settles in Zurich and undertakes the first staging of Shakespeearean plays in German there.

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Visitors:
Michael Faraday, Edward Forbes, Olver Wendell Holmes, Sir Charles Lyell, Matthew O'COnnor, John Ruskin (1819-1900), R. J. Shuttleworth, Mrs. Elizabeth Strutt,.

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Mountaineering:
Unsuccessful attempt to climb the Jungfrau by Yeats Brown and Stanhope Templeton Speer.

1836

Switzerland has become the second most important producer of cotton goods in the world. Sir John Bowring reports to the House of Commons that Swiss industry was the most efficient on the Continent.

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Transport:
Escher-Wyss build the first steamship without assistance from aborad, the Escher-Linth, for service on the Walensee.

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Visitors:
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Konstanz, Schaffhausen, Zurich, Rigi, Altdorf, Andermatt, Furka, Grimsel, Meiringen, Giessbach, Interlaken, Lauterbrunnen, Grindelwald, Thun, Berne, Lausanne, Vevey, Geneva, Chamonix, Lausanne, Brienz, Brünig, Lucerne, Zurich, Schaffhausen. Part of the scene of Hyperion is laid in Switzerland.
Other visitors: Honore de Balzac, Fanny W. Hall, Franz Liszt, George Sand, George Ticknor, J.M.W. Turner.

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Literature on Switzerland:
J. F. Cooper (1789-1851): Gleanings in Europe: Switzerland
William Beattie: Switzerland Illustrated in a Series of View Taken expressly for this Work by
William Henry Bartlett.
(see: picture of
Basel)

1837

"Stadt Luzern" is the first steam boat on the Lake of Lucerne.


till 1789 / The Romantics (1789 - 1837) / The Victorians (1837 - 1901) / 20th century

full timeline (one page)

Bibliography:
de Beer, G. R. Travellers in Switzerland. London 1949
Bernard, Paul B. Rush to the Alps. New York 1978.
Jud, Markus. Geschichte der Schweiz,
Verkehr [http://www.geschichte-schweiz.ch/verkehr.html]
Wraight, John. The Swiss and the British. Salisbury: Russell:1987

course programme (provisional)

other timelines:
American History:
Colonial America / 1789 - 1901 / 1901 - 2003
British History:
History of Great Britain