A Tour in Switzerland
Or, a View of the Present State of the Governments and Manners of those Cantons: With Comparative Sketches of the Present State of Paris

Published in 1798, a two-volume political travelogue by the radical writer and poet Helen Maria Williams (1759–1827).

Helen Maria Williams (Author)

9781108065948, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 31 October 2013

374 pages
21.6 x 14 x 2.1 cm, 0.48 kg

The radical writer and poet Helen Maria Williams (1759–1827) is best remembered for her eight-volume Letters from France (1790–6), charting the progress of the French Revolution. Having published poetry and a novel, Julia (1790), she travelled to France, where her salon welcomed the likes of Mary Wollstonecraft, Thomas Paine and leading Girondists. Forced to flee the country in 1794, she went into exile in Switzerland for six months, travelling with the printer and political reformer John Hurford Stone (1763–1818). This two-volume account of the journeys she made during her time there, first published in 1798, documents what she sees as the failure of Swiss democracy. Highlighting the shortcomings of the Swiss government and the suffering of much of Swiss society through exploitation, Williams anticipates revolutionary activity in the cantons. Volume 1 concentrates primarily on Basel and its canton.

Preface
1. Introduction
2. Comparative view of the spirit of commerce
3. Amusements of Paris
4. Road from Basil into the canton of Soleure
5. Lavater
6. Country from Basil to Zuric
7. Canton of Basil
8. Government of the canton of Basil
9. Curiosities of Basil
10. Lucerne
11. Altorf
12. Top of St Gothard
13. Valley of Levantine
14. Government of the Levantine valley
15. Government of the canton of Uri
16. Giornico
17. Installation of the bailiff of Lugano
18. A storm on the lake
19. History of an emigrant family
20. Visit to the Grisons
21. Val Calenca state of society
22. St Bernadin.

Subject Areas: European history [HBJD]