Civilized Observers in a Backward Land: British Travellers in Greece, 1832–1862

Abstract

British travellers visited Greece in increasing numbers after its formation as an independent state in 1832 and many of them published accounts of their wanderings. The conclusive evidence of early-Victorian travellers attested to the lack of infrastructure and domestic comfort, civil rights and free institutions. The tracing of discursive consistency in British travellers’ opinions on Greece, of recurring arguments, assumptions and associations, constitutes one of the aims of this article. It is also argued that comments on the modern Greeks should be examined in the context of a wider public debate, which involved general and universally applicable notions of “national progress”.