Arry and ’Arriet Beyond Punch: Tourism and Class Tension in Popular Fiction

Rising lower- and middle-class Victorians benefited from affordable opportunities for travel, with the hospitality industry newly opened to travelers of all socioeconomic backgrounds. Travel destinations, domestic and international, became spaces of contention, shared by the wealthy—accustomed to pr...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Victorians : a journal of culture and literature 2023, Vol.144 (1), p.151-167
Main Author: Brecke, Anna
Format: Article
Language:English
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Rising lower- and middle-class Victorians benefited from affordable opportunities for travel, with the hospitality industry newly opened to travelers of all socioeconomic backgrounds. Travel destinations, domestic and international, became spaces of contention, shared by the wealthy—accustomed to privilege—and the lower classes—who aimed to share in that privilege. Popular periodicals satirized these developments, as in the Punch character ’Arry, a Cockney man known for following the latest trends, including travel. Symbolizing the generic lower-class tourist, ’Arry also appears in newspapers and other periodicals, and in works of fiction by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Marie Corelli, and Florence Marryat. ’Arry and his companion ’Arriet highlight class and race tensions, at home and abroad, in unique and unprecedented ways.
ISSN:2166-0107
2475-6741
2475-6741
DOI:10.1353/vct.2023.a913513