Europe in the looking glass - Reflections of a Motor Drive From Grimsby to Athens (1926. e2012)

In 1941, Robert Byron was killed when the ship on which he was travelling was torpedoed in the North Atlantic. Four years earlier his book The Road to Oxiana had been published, and it is for this seminal work that he is today best remembered. However, Byron’s first book had been published some twelve years before that. In 1925, sent down from Oxford for ‘misdemeanours’ and with little else to do, he had embarked with three friends on a car journey to Athens. Footloose, immature and anything but mechanically-minded, they blundered from one crisis to the next. Despite the boisterous, self-indulgent attitude with which he and his companions approach their journey, it is here that Byron’s remarkable skill as a travel writer is first revealed. His responses to the architecture of Italy and Classical Greece remain extraordinarily evocative; his independence of mind and indifference to hardship and adversity were to characterise his later exploration the Middle East and South Asia. Above all, __Europe in the Looking Glass__ is a portrait of a continent and its people that were soon to change irrevocably. It is here reprinted for the first time in over eighty years with a foreword by renowned travel writer Jan Morris. A travel writing classic ready to be rediscovered, Europe in the Looking Glass describes, with a mixture of laugh-out-loud humour and perceptive commentary on art and architecture, how three rich young Englishmen cross pre-World-War-Two Europe in an old car. Best known as the author of The Road to Oxiana, published in 1937, Robert Byron developed his considerable writing skills on a travel book which has not been in print since 1926. Europe in the Looking Glass describes a journey Byron made with three friends, driving across Europe between two world wars, and mixes political and historical analysis with architectural insights, classical scholarship and the day-to-day adventures of three young and not very experienced travelers. For fans of Robert Byron's work this will be a discovery; for others it will be an introduction. Turning a corner we suddenly found ourselves sliding down a precipice, tilted so far forward that it was necessary to hold ourselves back with our hands pressed against the dashboard, as half a dozen Apennine valleys beckoned invitingly below#x85; Here [St Peter's] Popes with black faces and golden crowns are wallowing twice life-size in the titanic folds of marble tablecloths, their ormolu fringes festooning upon the arms of graceful skeletons to disclose some Alice-in-Wonderland door or the grim hinges of some sepulchral grill#x85;]]> Three rich young Englishmen cross pre-World War II Europe in an old car with a mixture of laugh-out-loud humor and perceptive commentary on art and architecture Turning a corner we suddenly found ourselves sliding down a precipice, tilted so far forward that it was necessary to hold ourselves back with our hands pressed against the dashboard, as half a dozen Apennine valleys beckoned invitingly below. Here [St Peter's] Popes with black faces and golden crowns are wallowing twice life-size in the titanic folds of marble tablecloths, their ormolu fringes festooning upon the arms of graceful skeletons to disclose some Alice-in-Wonderland door or the grim hinges of some sepulchral grill... Best known as the author of The Road to Oxiana, published in 1937, Robert Byron had developed his considerable writing skills on this travel book which has not been in print since 1926. It describes a journey Byron made with three friends, driving across Europe between two world wars, and mixes political and historical analysis with architectural insights, classical scholarship, and the day-to-day adventures of three young and not very experienced travelers. For fans of Robert Byron's work this will be a discovery; for others it will be an introduction. Includes nine original sketches made by the author during his travels. Three rich young Englishmen cross pre-World War IIEurope in an old car w ith a mixture of laugh-out-loud humor and perceptive commentary on art and architecture Turning a corner we suddenly found ourselves sliding down a precipice, tilted so far forward that it was necessary to hold ourselves back with our hands pressed against the dashboard, as half a dozen Apennine valleys beckoned invitingly below. Here [St Peters] Popes with black faces and golden crowns are wallowing twice life-size in the titanic folds of marble tablecloths, their ormolu fringes festooning upon the arms of graceful skeletons to disclose some Alice-in-Wonderland door or the grim hinges of some sepulchral grill . . . Best known as the author of The Road to Oxiana , published in 1937, Robert Byron had developed his considerable writing skills onthis travel book which has not been in print since 1926.It describes a journey Byron made with three friends, driving across Europe between two world wars, and mixes political and historical analysis with architectural insights, classical scholarship, and the day-to-day adventures of three young and not very experienced travelers. For fans of Robert Byrons work this will be a discovery; for others it will be an introduction. Includes nine original sketches made by the author during his travels. Robert Byron is best known for The road to Oxiana, but this book was written twelve years earlier. Byron and three friends set off in 1925 to travel across Europe from Hamburg to Athens. Byron's skill as a travel writer evokes a picture of Europe in the 1920's that was soon to be irrevocably changed by the first world war