1st Edition
Questions of Authority Italian and Australian Travel Narratives of the Long Nineteenth Century
CONTENTS
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part One: Italians in Australia
Chapter 1: Exploration and Religion
- James Mario Matra, ‘one of those gentlemen […] that can very well be spared’
- Alessandro Malaspina at the Service of ‘the nation that has taken me
- Rosendo Salvado and the Benedictine Mission of New Norcia:
- Raffaello Carboni’s ‘truth, and nothing but the truth’
- Unauthorized Naturalistic Travels
- Pietro Munari’s Ambivalent Authority: ‘bible, lead and rum’
- Grace Leadbetter: ‘our feelings on first leaving home notwithstanding we were
- James Smith’s Travel Notes: ‘a sort of handbook’
- Sophia Jennings: ‘flitting from our dear old home’
- Violet Ida Chomley: ‘not the "Grand Tour" but the "Downward Path"’
- Nathan Spielvogel: ‘what interests me most is wandering’
- Louie Riggall’s Capri: ‘a bit of the street from our window’
as one of its own!’
‘a victory obtained without bloodshed or noise of arms’
Chapter 2: Early Migration and Science
Part Two: Australians in Italy
Chapter 3: From Travel to Tourism
bound on a tour of pleasure’
Chapter 4: Touristic and Artistic Journeys
Conclusion
References
Index
Biography
Laura Olcelli has recently completed a Doctor of Philosophy in English at the University of Sydney, Australia. Her research interests span exploration literature, women’s travel narratives, and travel writing – from the Grand Tour to the twentieth century, with a focus on journeys to and from Italy. She has published journal articles and book chapters in all of these fields. She is an awarded presenter at international literary conferences.
Olcelli’s book is a demonstration of the multidimensional aspect and shifting nature of travel writing. Tackling a very original argument, the book focuses on accounts of late 18th-century to 19th-century travels that took place both ways, to Australia (by the Italians) and to Italy (by the Australians), and proposes to examine issues of authority, peripatetic, as connected to authorship, and also of identity and how they are constructed and displayed in these accounts. Drawing on a large body of literature, critical, historical and literary, and well-grounded theoretically, in key texts from travel writing criticism and postcolonial theory, the book examines travel narratives, some of which unanalysed before, by Italians in Australia (part 1 of the book) and Australians in Italy (part 2), which evidence the changes in 19th-century travel writing as a result of the shift in the very purpose of travelling, which grew more professionally or touristically oriented, but also of the social and political changes that both countries underwent. Olcelli makes sure that the focus of her study is clearly defined and proposed in the thorough introduction of the book. The arguments are dealt with in a straightforward manner and written in a reader-friendly language.
--ESSE Book Award, 2018
