12 - Trading: Routes in Scotland

Summary

The foregoing chapters have examined how travel and theproduction and distribution of travel literaturefunctioned as means of connecting, knowing and‘improving’ the nation, and of establishing Scotland– especially Edinburgh and the Highlands – as aplace of tourism. The travel writers and travellingreaders have been emphasised, but so too have theEdinburgh-based booksellers who played a major rolein the commerce of travel in the period. Indeed,just as maps depicted roads and texts describedjourneys, geographical publications also beat newpaths and followed particular routes. This chapterfocuses more specifically on the Edinburghbooksellers’ trade, particularly their wholesaletrade with other Scottish booksellers and especiallytheir substantial trade in travel books. Focusing onthe common routes of trade between Edinburgh andbooksellers elsewhere in the nation enables a fullerunderstanding of the national geographies ofliterary commerce in Enlightenment Scotland. TheEdinburgh booksellers’ patterns of nationalwholesale trade indicate the networks through whichgeographical publications were disseminated fromEdinburgh. Then, by focusing on the mass of travelbooks sold by the Edinburgh booksellers, thischapter also shows how accounts of Scottish toursfitted into a broader genre of travel literaturethat was big business in Edinburgh and that enablednational-cultural comparisons. It discusses howaccounts of other places were transposed onto andtranslated into Scotland, and into travellers’experiences of Scotland. Highlighting examples fromThomas Pennant, Robert Heron and Sarah Murray, thischapter demonstrates how travellers compared whatthey saw in Scotland with the accounts of foreigntravels that were available in Scotland'sbookshops.

The most popular Scottish Enlightenment travel accountstended to describe journeys through the north andwest of the country (Table 2). The Western Highlandsin the north-west, the Hebridean islands off thewest coast and ‘Robert Burns country’ in thesouth-west were the tourists’ favourites. Thepopularity of the north and west as subjectsreflects a number of historical, cultural andliterary factors to do with interest in perceiveddifference, in an ‘authentic’ Scotland and in‘frontiers’ of knowledge. A journey from Edinburghto the commercial cities of Perth and Aberdeen didnot have the same connotations of discovery, romanceand sublimity as a trip to the uninhabited Hebrideanisland of Staffa, for example.