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The Clumsiest People in Europe: Or, Mrs. Mortimer's Bad-Tempered Guide to the Victorian World
A caustic, cranky, and inadvertently hilarious look at foreign countries and their customs by a Victorian woman who rarely left the house.
No matter who your ancestors were, and where they had the misfortune of living, Victorian children's book writer Mrs. Favell Lee Mortimer had something nasty to say about them. Their faults, according to Mrs. Mortimer, might have amounted to just about anything. The Irish "are very kind and good-natured when pleased, but if affronted, are filled with rage." In Italy, "the people are ignorant and wicked." In Sweden, "Nothing useful is well done...The carpenters and the blacksmiths are very clumsy in their work."
Remarkably, all of these assertions come from a woman who only twice set foot outside of her native England. But lack of personal experience never kept Mrs. Mortimer from dispensing her horrifying wisdom about the evils of just about every nation on earth. Whether describing Europe ("It is dreadful to think what a number of murders are committed in Italy"), Asia ("The religion of Taou teaches men to act like madmen"), Africa ("The worst quality in any character is hypocrisy, and this is to be found in the Egyptian"), or America ("New Orleans is a dangerous place to live in, both for the body and the soul"), Mrs. Mortimer's views are consistently appalling. One hundred fifty years later, three of her forgotten classics have been compiled into one volume, The Clumsiest People in Europe, reviving the comically misinformed and startling prejudices of this unique Victorian eccentric.
No matter who your ancestors were, and where they had the misfortune of living, Victorian children's book writer Mrs. Favell Lee Mortimer had something nasty to say about them. Their faults, according to Mrs. Mortimer, might have amounted to just about anything. The Irish "are very kind and good-natured when pleased, but if affronted, are filled with rage." In Italy, "the people are ignorant and wicked." In Sweden, "Nothing useful is well done...The carpenters and the blacksmiths are very clumsy in their work."
Remarkably, all of these assertions come from a woman who only twice set foot outside of her native England. But lack of personal experience never kept Mrs. Mortimer from dispensing her horrifying wisdom about the evils of just about every nation on earth. Whether describing Europe ("It is dreadful to think what a number of murders are committed in Italy"), Asia ("The religion of Taou teaches men to act like madmen"), Africa ("The worst quality in any character is hypocrisy, and this is to be found in the Egyptian"), or America ("New Orleans is a dangerous place to live in, both for the body and the soul"), Mrs. Mortimer's views are consistently appalling. One hundred fifty years later, three of her forgotten classics have been compiled into one volume, The Clumsiest People in Europe, reviving the comically misinformed and startling prejudices of this unique Victorian eccentric.
208 pages, Hardcover
First published June 6, 2005
15 people are currently reading
374 people want to read
About the author
Favell Lee Mortimer
257 books1 followerVictorian children’s writer Mrs. Favell Lee Mortimer (born Favell Lee Bevan) was a woman of deep piety--and of even more profound prejudices. Born a Quaker in London in 1802, she converted to Evangelicalism at age 25 and devoted her life to the proper religious development of children, a task that involved extolling the virtues of Protestantism and denouncing as corrupt or evil every other form of faith and practice.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 66 reviews
February 9, 2009
Mrs. Favell Lee Bevan Mortimer was a bitterly unhappy, possibly suicidal Victorian matron who never traveled anywhere--not even to Wales, although the Welsh border was nine miles from her front door. It is not certain whether by the end of her life she was insane or merely very eccentric. (Such a shame about the drowned parrot.) Naturally, she was a prolific author of history and geography textbooks for young people.
Todd Pruzan was poking around a used-book sale when he found one of Mrs. Mortimer's texts, which is full of sweeping generalizations, racism, anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, and (interestingly) abolitionist rantings. Fascinated, he researched her life and condensed her writings for a 21st-century audience. Here's a sample:
"The Prussians are not fond of eating, like the Austrians."
About the French: "Not very clean."
Iceland: "It is a pity the churches are not kept cleaner and neater."
"The Sicilians are fierce, violent, and cruel."
About North and South America: "America is never spoken of in the Bible."
"The Pyramids are great piles of stones."
On the Bechuanas of Africa: "They always laugh when they hear of customs not their own; for they think that they do everything in the best way, and all other ways are foolish." (This is rather like Mrs. Mortimer herself.)
"The most beautiful city in the world" is . . . Edinburgh. Hmmm.
About German women: "They are not fond of reading useful books. When they read, it is novels about people who never lived. It would be better to read nothing than such books."
When Mrs. Mortimer isn't insulting pretty much everyone on the planet, she is telling her young and impressionable audience horrifying tales of avalanches, earthquakes, and children being maimed as punishment for stealing.
Mortimer's most famous book may have been Reading Without Tears, which Winston Churchill said did not live up to its title.
Mortimer's books had wide audiences for decades, which makes me realize how far we have come with textbooks--and, thank goodness, the Internet, which contains no mistakes.
Todd Pruzan was poking around a used-book sale when he found one of Mrs. Mortimer's texts, which is full of sweeping generalizations, racism, anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, and (interestingly) abolitionist rantings. Fascinated, he researched her life and condensed her writings for a 21st-century audience. Here's a sample:
"The Prussians are not fond of eating, like the Austrians."
About the French: "Not very clean."
Iceland: "It is a pity the churches are not kept cleaner and neater."
"The Sicilians are fierce, violent, and cruel."
About North and South America: "America is never spoken of in the Bible."
"The Pyramids are great piles of stones."
On the Bechuanas of Africa: "They always laugh when they hear of customs not their own; for they think that they do everything in the best way, and all other ways are foolish." (This is rather like Mrs. Mortimer herself.)
"The most beautiful city in the world" is . . . Edinburgh. Hmmm.
About German women: "They are not fond of reading useful books. When they read, it is novels about people who never lived. It would be better to read nothing than such books."
When Mrs. Mortimer isn't insulting pretty much everyone on the planet, she is telling her young and impressionable audience horrifying tales of avalanches, earthquakes, and children being maimed as punishment for stealing.
Mortimer's most famous book may have been Reading Without Tears, which Winston Churchill said did not live up to its title.
Mortimer's books had wide audiences for decades, which makes me realize how far we have come with textbooks--and, thank goodness, the Internet, which contains no mistakes.
April 1, 2023
Denmark is very flat, but not nearly as flat as Holland, nor as damp, nor as ugly.
Genuinely bizarre little book that in Pruzan's editing is far funnier than it has any right to be. It's as if Twain's The Innocents Abroad: Or the New Pilgrim's Progress (published 15 years after McDowell's original books) was written by a racist, humorless British biddy who never left home (true fact - Mortimer traveled only twice outside of England and never very far- she never even made it to Wales, which was only a few miles from where she lived*). As such, this should go on a separate bookshelf with Innocents as well as The Onion's equally (if intentionally) offensive Our Dumb World: The Onion's Atlas of the Planet Earth.**
The book consists of three parts - "The Clumsiest People in Europe," "The Drunkest Laborers in Asia," and "The Wickedest City in the World" - excerpted from Mortimer's three more prosaically-titled books published between 1849-1854. Well, four parts really, as Pruzan's excellent (and lengthy) introduction is an equally important part of the overall story, and should definitely be read first, tempting as it is to dive right into the insults. (Also important - and the source of the book's sole educational value - are the introductory paragraphs added to the beginning of each country's evisceration, which give a brief but extremely valuable summary of the country's history and just where it stood mid-19th century.)
But to Mortimer's work itself…as condensed down by Pruzan, her uninformed mocking of Europe is hilarious; Asia slightly less so; and then outright ugly once she reaches Africa. However, in a surprise twist, she then leaps to America where she offers an enlightened attack on not just slavery, but on the treatment of free blacks in the North. So in fact, she may just be an exaggerated product of her time - an unhappy, uber-Anglican Victorian harpy in post-slavery England.
Anyway, just a few samples to let you know what you're in for:
IRELAND: The religion they teach is called the Roman Catholic religion. It is a kind of Christian religion, but a very bad kind.
PORTUGAL: No people in Europe are as clumsy and awkward with their hands as the Portuguese. It is curious to see how badly the carpenters make boxes and the smiths make keys.
ITALY: The favorite food of poor people is macaroni. Macaroni looks like white serpents.
GERMANY: The ladies…can play on the piano, and the harp, and sing very sweetly. But they are not fond of reading useful books. When they read, it is novels about people who never lived. It would be better to read nothing than such books.
POLAND: You may go a great way in Poland without seeing anything pretty…The Jews are not idle like the Poles, but try in every way to get money. It is they who keep the inns - and wretched inns they are, because the Jews are very dirty.
SWITZERLAND: The Protestants follow one of the bad customs of the Roman Catholics - they amuse themselves on Sunday.
CHINA: All the religions of China are bad, but of the three, the religion of Confucius is the least foolish. The religion of Tao teaches men to act like madmen. The religion of Buddha teaches men to act like idiots. The religion of Confucius teaches men to act like wise men, but without souls.
TARTARY: The Toorkmen spend most of their time in sauntering among the tents. But when their hands are idle, their thoughts are still busy in planning new robberies and murders.
BURMA: The Burmese are deceitful, and tell lies on every occasion.
SIAM: The Siamese resemble the Burmese in appearance, but they are much worse-looking.
AMERICA: The children are brought up in a very unwholesome manner. They are allowed to eat hotcakes and rich preserves at breakfast, and ices and oysters at supper, when they ought to be satisfied with their basins of porridge, or their milk and water and bread and butter.
Anyway - a bizarre, amusing oddity, and another one of those books best left on the nightstand and read a few pages at a time.
___________________________
* I think that's accurate, although I'm not rereading the Introduction again to fact check myself.
** Although at the same time, this is also a disreputable companion book to the better and far more enlightened Whatever Happened to Tanganyika?: The Place Names that History Left Behind, in that it introduces us to a number of countries we've totally forgotten about 170 years later - Circassia, Tartary, Siam, Nubia, Abyssinia, Ashanti.
Genuinely bizarre little book that in Pruzan's editing is far funnier than it has any right to be. It's as if Twain's The Innocents Abroad: Or the New Pilgrim's Progress (published 15 years after McDowell's original books) was written by a racist, humorless British biddy who never left home (true fact - Mortimer traveled only twice outside of England and never very far- she never even made it to Wales, which was only a few miles from where she lived*). As such, this should go on a separate bookshelf with Innocents as well as The Onion's equally (if intentionally) offensive Our Dumb World: The Onion's Atlas of the Planet Earth.**
The book consists of three parts - "The Clumsiest People in Europe," "The Drunkest Laborers in Asia," and "The Wickedest City in the World" - excerpted from Mortimer's three more prosaically-titled books published between 1849-1854. Well, four parts really, as Pruzan's excellent (and lengthy) introduction is an equally important part of the overall story, and should definitely be read first, tempting as it is to dive right into the insults. (Also important - and the source of the book's sole educational value - are the introductory paragraphs added to the beginning of each country's evisceration, which give a brief but extremely valuable summary of the country's history and just where it stood mid-19th century.)
But to Mortimer's work itself…as condensed down by Pruzan, her uninformed mocking of Europe is hilarious; Asia slightly less so; and then outright ugly once she reaches Africa. However, in a surprise twist, she then leaps to America where she offers an enlightened attack on not just slavery, but on the treatment of free blacks in the North. So in fact, she may just be an exaggerated product of her time - an unhappy, uber-Anglican Victorian harpy in post-slavery England.
Anyway, just a few samples to let you know what you're in for:
IRELAND: The religion they teach is called the Roman Catholic religion. It is a kind of Christian religion, but a very bad kind.
PORTUGAL: No people in Europe are as clumsy and awkward with their hands as the Portuguese. It is curious to see how badly the carpenters make boxes and the smiths make keys.
ITALY: The favorite food of poor people is macaroni. Macaroni looks like white serpents.
GERMANY: The ladies…can play on the piano, and the harp, and sing very sweetly. But they are not fond of reading useful books. When they read, it is novels about people who never lived. It would be better to read nothing than such books.
POLAND: You may go a great way in Poland without seeing anything pretty…The Jews are not idle like the Poles, but try in every way to get money. It is they who keep the inns - and wretched inns they are, because the Jews are very dirty.
SWITZERLAND: The Protestants follow one of the bad customs of the Roman Catholics - they amuse themselves on Sunday.
CHINA: All the religions of China are bad, but of the three, the religion of Confucius is the least foolish. The religion of Tao teaches men to act like madmen. The religion of Buddha teaches men to act like idiots. The religion of Confucius teaches men to act like wise men, but without souls.
TARTARY: The Toorkmen spend most of their time in sauntering among the tents. But when their hands are idle, their thoughts are still busy in planning new robberies and murders.
BURMA: The Burmese are deceitful, and tell lies on every occasion.
SIAM: The Siamese resemble the Burmese in appearance, but they are much worse-looking.
AMERICA: The children are brought up in a very unwholesome manner. They are allowed to eat hotcakes and rich preserves at breakfast, and ices and oysters at supper, when they ought to be satisfied with their basins of porridge, or their milk and water and bread and butter.
Anyway - a bizarre, amusing oddity, and another one of those books best left on the nightstand and read a few pages at a time.
___________________________
* I think that's accurate, although I'm not rereading the Introduction again to fact check myself.
** Although at the same time, this is also a disreputable companion book to the better and far more enlightened Whatever Happened to Tanganyika?: The Place Names that History Left Behind, in that it introduces us to a number of countries we've totally forgotten about 170 years later - Circassia, Tartary, Siam, Nubia, Abyssinia, Ashanti.
February 8, 2015
It's kind of fascinating to read this. Poor Mrs. Mortimer is so incredibly earnest in her complete and total lack of respect for any culture that isn't identical to her own. Is this a glimpse into the mind of the average, middle class, Victorian era Englishwoman? Her works apparently sold quite well, so maybe so. After fifty pages or so, it did start to drag. I get it, she hated every country, especially the ones she'd never seen. And it's the same thing over and over. If you believe her, nearly every person on Earth was shockingly filthy.
Pruzan's additions add almost no value. His collection of facts about each country are just trivia, and don't really relate that much to Mrs. Mortimer's writing. I started skipping them fairly early on in the book, and I don't think I missed anything. That said, I think he did a pretty good job of editing down the original work. I can't imagine how tedious this might have gotten if it hadn't been cut down.
I love history, which is probably why I enjoyed this as much as I did. It could be quite funny at times, always unintentionally so. Mrs. Mortimer meant well, probably, but she's was very much a product of her time.
Pruzan's additions add almost no value. His collection of facts about each country are just trivia, and don't really relate that much to Mrs. Mortimer's writing. I started skipping them fairly early on in the book, and I don't think I missed anything. That said, I think he did a pretty good job of editing down the original work. I can't imagine how tedious this might have gotten if it hadn't been cut down.
I love history, which is probably why I enjoyed this as much as I did. It could be quite funny at times, always unintentionally so. Mrs. Mortimer meant well, probably, but she's was very much a product of her time.
July 3, 2017
Each country that the author covered involved a brief introduction on the current events and history. That's the only good part.
Though informative, this book is heavily filled with prejudices, plain ignorance and often terribly unnecessary bias and opinionated information.
Every nationality had a checklist for Mrs Mortimer:
- Clean or dirty
- Rich or poor
- Idle or industrious
- Brave or cruel
- Wicked or not
- Robbers or civilised
I was excited by the promising blurb:
'Mrs Favell Lee Mortimer set out to write an ambitious guide to all the nations on Earth... The result was an unintentionally hilarious masterpiece.'
The title was largely responsible for the buy; The Clumsiest People in Europe.
There wasn't even a single clumsy person.
In the book's defense, I may have skipped a part in the 'promising blurb'.
'There were just three problems:
~ She had never set foot outside Shropshire.
~ She was horribly misinformed about virtually every topic she turned her attention to.
~ And she was prejudiced against foreigners.'
Amazingly, I had a favourite quote. If a woman in the mid 1800s could read about the beauty of Switzerland and also agree with my opinion, that it is the most beautiful place on earth - then it truly must be.
"There is no country in Europe as beautiful as Switzerland; it is the land of high mountains, and deep valleys, and bubbling streams, and roaring waterfalls."
Though informative, this book is heavily filled with prejudices, plain ignorance and often terribly unnecessary bias and opinionated information.
Every nationality had a checklist for Mrs Mortimer:
- Clean or dirty
- Rich or poor
- Idle or industrious
- Brave or cruel
- Wicked or not
- Robbers or civilised
I was excited by the promising blurb:
'Mrs Favell Lee Mortimer set out to write an ambitious guide to all the nations on Earth... The result was an unintentionally hilarious masterpiece.'
The title was largely responsible for the buy; The Clumsiest People in Europe.
There wasn't even a single clumsy person.
In the book's defense, I may have skipped a part in the 'promising blurb'.
'There were just three problems:
~ She had never set foot outside Shropshire.
~ She was horribly misinformed about virtually every topic she turned her attention to.
~ And she was prejudiced against foreigners.'
Amazingly, I had a favourite quote. If a woman in the mid 1800s could read about the beauty of Switzerland and also agree with my opinion, that it is the most beautiful place on earth - then it truly must be.
"There is no country in Europe as beautiful as Switzerland; it is the land of high mountains, and deep valleys, and bubbling streams, and roaring waterfalls."
March 6, 2014
There is a long interesting intro by Todd Pruzan - he is the one that has taken these outrageous snippets from the three volume instruction, written by Mrs Mortimer.
I cannot help but think the Xenophobic Guide series owes much to Mrs Mortimer.
I cannot help but think the Xenophobic Guide series owes much to Mrs Mortimer.
April 13, 2009
As Pruzan says in his introduction, "No matter where your ancestors had the misfortune of living--no doubt smoking too much, or taking snuff, or reading useless novels--Mrs. Favell Lee Mortimer had something nasty to say about them." Mrs. Mortimer had a successful, forty-year career writing Victorian children's books. Here's an example of her style from her bestselling The Peep of Day or a Series of the Earliest Religious Instruction the Infant Mind is Capable of Receiving:
"God has covered your bones with flesh. Your flesh is soft and warm...How easy it would be to hurt your poor little body! If it were to fall into a fire, it would be burned up. If a great knife were run through your body, the blood would come out. If a great box were to fall out of a window, your neck would be broken. If you were not to eat some food for a few days, your little body would be very sick, your breath would stop, and you would grow cold, and you would soon be dead." Children's books were written just a tad differently, back in the day.
Mrs.Mortimer wrote a number of books about other countries, despite having only been outside England twice--once to Brussels and Paris, and once to Edinburgh. Hardly a world traveler, and yet she churned out chapter after chapter. To no reader's surprise, her descriptions of other nations are wildly inaccurate and viciously prejudiced. Pruzan has collected some of his favorite chapters and pulled them together with a little preface of what was actually going on in that region. I enjoyed this book a great deal, but it's hard to read in one sitting. This would make an excellent bathroom book, or joke present.
"God has covered your bones with flesh. Your flesh is soft and warm...How easy it would be to hurt your poor little body! If it were to fall into a fire, it would be burned up. If a great knife were run through your body, the blood would come out. If a great box were to fall out of a window, your neck would be broken. If you were not to eat some food for a few days, your little body would be very sick, your breath would stop, and you would grow cold, and you would soon be dead." Children's books were written just a tad differently, back in the day.
Mrs.Mortimer wrote a number of books about other countries, despite having only been outside England twice--once to Brussels and Paris, and once to Edinburgh. Hardly a world traveler, and yet she churned out chapter after chapter. To no reader's surprise, her descriptions of other nations are wildly inaccurate and viciously prejudiced. Pruzan has collected some of his favorite chapters and pulled them together with a little preface of what was actually going on in that region. I enjoyed this book a great deal, but it's hard to read in one sitting. This would make an excellent bathroom book, or joke present.
July 17, 2015
There's something delightful in the uneasy mix of appalling opinions and charming writing.
August 7, 2007
In the vein of Daisy Ashford's The Young Visiters, here is an unintentional Victorian gem. Mrs. Mortimer, who has a (usually negative) opinion about everything she encounters while traveling on the Continent is hugely funny to read, along with Pruzon's comments, in our "enlightened" age. How someone so bad tempered can be so funny is the chief charm of this droll book.
February 23, 2024
This is a collection of some of the worst travel writing in history. It is so terribly bad that it is hilarious. Favell Lee Mortimer's travel guides had something bad to say about almost every country in the world, and yet...She. Never. Traveled. Anywhere.
July 11, 2010
Mrs Favell Lee Mortimer wrote prim, 'instructive' books for children in Victorian times. Three of her books formed a sort of guide to the world - though at the time of writing them she had only left England once, getting no further than Paris and Brussels. Consequently her perceptions are gleaned from other, unspecified sources.
Todd Pruzan in 2005 gathered a selection of her commentaries into this single volume. He introduces each country with his own potted picture of its circumstances at the time - a smattering of facts that are no doubt accurate, but also kind of random.
Then Mrs Mortimer lets rip, blithely generalising about millions of people that she has never set eyes on:
The Egyptians are hypocrites, the Japanese wicked, the Chinese selfish and unfeeling... Vague anecdotes from anonymous "travellers" stand as 'proof' of the failings of entire peoples. Her evangelical christianity blinds her to the ironies in her condemnation of other religions. Why are the catholic Irish told not to read the bible?
All this is good sport, the complacent bigotry of another age; but it gets a bit wearing after a while, and I was glad the book was quite short. And to be fair to Mrs Mortimer, putting aside her blinkers and her curiously sadistic asides ("while the hyenas were feasting upon his wife's dead body"), she does actually mean well. She is staunchly against slavery, for instance, and as often (if as wrongly) ascribes positive qualities to whole populations as she does negative. She is ultimately a creation of her time, and perhaps too easy a target for the reader's laughter to be sustained.
Todd Pruzan in 2005 gathered a selection of her commentaries into this single volume. He introduces each country with his own potted picture of its circumstances at the time - a smattering of facts that are no doubt accurate, but also kind of random.
Then Mrs Mortimer lets rip, blithely generalising about millions of people that she has never set eyes on:
The Poles love talking, and they speak so loud they almost scream.
No people in Europe are as clumsy and awkward with their hands as the Portuguese.
Though the Bushmen are counted among the most stupid of men, yet they can do many things better than any other Hottentots.
The Egyptians are hypocrites, the Japanese wicked, the Chinese selfish and unfeeling... Vague anecdotes from anonymous "travellers" stand as 'proof' of the failings of entire peoples. Her evangelical christianity blinds her to the ironies in her condemnation of other religions. Why are the catholic Irish told not to read the bible?
Because these ministers or priests tell them a great many wrong things, which are not written in the Bible, and they do not want the people to find out the truth... It is a kind of Christian religion, but it is a very bad kind.
All this is good sport, the complacent bigotry of another age; but it gets a bit wearing after a while, and I was glad the book was quite short. And to be fair to Mrs Mortimer, putting aside her blinkers and her curiously sadistic asides ("while the hyenas were feasting upon his wife's dead body"), she does actually mean well. She is staunchly against slavery, for instance, and as often (if as wrongly) ascribes positive qualities to whole populations as she does negative. She is ultimately a creation of her time, and perhaps too easy a target for the reader's laughter to be sustained.
July 15, 2015
I picked up this travel guide/insight to Victorian culture from the local library, thanks to Inner Stickler's recommendation over at the SDMB.
Mrs. Favell Lee Mortimer (1802 - 1878), despite only having twice left her native England (and those trips were brief), penned multiple travel guides aimed toward children, using various (and perhaps questionable) sources. She drew on her expertise as an Evangelical/Moralist children's book author, as well as her own (and her society's) prejudices of the day to write some of the most judgmental, preachy, intolerant, and downright nasty sketches of nations and peoples that I've had the pleasure to read.
Pleasure, you ask? I suppose it's her condescending, didactic tone "What country do you love best? Your own country. I know you do. Every child loves his own country best." and unshakable confidence in her opinions (as well as the separation of 150 years) that makes her material a comedic exaggeration as opposed to a sad and frightening commentary on bigotry and xenophobia.
Maybe it's because she writes disparagingly of everyone; not even her fellow Britons get away clean: "They are not very pleasant in company, because they do not like strangers, nor taking much trouble ... They are too fond of money, as well as of good eating and drinking." While she abhors slavery (as every good Evangelical did, back in her day) she attacks both rich and poor across the globe - considering both "lazy". She harbors animosity not only toward "Mahomedans" and "Hindoos", but Roman Catholics and Jews as well.
Todd Pruzan's opening chapter provides both biographical and historical context for Mrs Mortimer and her writings. She suffered adversity and overall did not seem to be a happy woman. Prior to each nation's sketch, Pruzan gives a brief history of the area for context. He obviously chose each piece of writing for comedic impact, but it's fascinating (and depressing) to see how many prejudices carry over into modern day, something he also touches on in his opening chapter. While primarily a humorous book, to be read very much tongue in cheek, it also speaks to our modern day experiences with racism, intolerance and "othering".
Mrs. Favell Lee Mortimer (1802 - 1878), despite only having twice left her native England (and those trips were brief), penned multiple travel guides aimed toward children, using various (and perhaps questionable) sources. She drew on her expertise as an Evangelical/Moralist children's book author, as well as her own (and her society's) prejudices of the day to write some of the most judgmental, preachy, intolerant, and downright nasty sketches of nations and peoples that I've had the pleasure to read.
Pleasure, you ask? I suppose it's her condescending, didactic tone "What country do you love best? Your own country. I know you do. Every child loves his own country best." and unshakable confidence in her opinions (as well as the separation of 150 years) that makes her material a comedic exaggeration as opposed to a sad and frightening commentary on bigotry and xenophobia.
Maybe it's because she writes disparagingly of everyone; not even her fellow Britons get away clean: "They are not very pleasant in company, because they do not like strangers, nor taking much trouble ... They are too fond of money, as well as of good eating and drinking." While she abhors slavery (as every good Evangelical did, back in her day) she attacks both rich and poor across the globe - considering both "lazy". She harbors animosity not only toward "Mahomedans" and "Hindoos", but Roman Catholics and Jews as well.
Todd Pruzan's opening chapter provides both biographical and historical context for Mrs Mortimer and her writings. She suffered adversity and overall did not seem to be a happy woman. Prior to each nation's sketch, Pruzan gives a brief history of the area for context. He obviously chose each piece of writing for comedic impact, but it's fascinating (and depressing) to see how many prejudices carry over into modern day, something he also touches on in his opening chapter. While primarily a humorous book, to be read very much tongue in cheek, it also speaks to our modern day experiences with racism, intolerance and "othering".
January 22, 2010
I thought the republishing of this book was clumsy! While it was quite interesting to read the original author's vitriol -- and very entertaining in a macabre way -- the "new" author didn't seem to do much at all. The chapter introductions about each country were worthless. This was a great topic wasted. Where was the insightful commentary? The introduction was a good start but I think the author fell asleep or something.
September 25, 2021
Absolutely hilarious, because it's true (not that people are clumsy, but that someone actually wrote this god-awful book in all seriousness). It's not mediocre and bland bad writing, it's truly jaw-dropping I-can't-believe-it demented prose.
A good illustration of the old adage "if you can't say anything nice, write a travel guide."
A good illustration of the old adage "if you can't say anything nice, write a travel guide."
November 30, 2019
Horrifyingly, unintentionally, laugh-out-loud funny. The author was once engaged to Cardinal Newman (pre-conversion to Rome). He made a smart choice - even a pope couldn't be as blindly self righteous as this specimen of the British Empire at its worst.
March 28, 2012
Antique xenophobia from an armchair world traveler. Misanthropy was never more hilarious.
February 3, 2020
This is a compilation of quotations from the books of a nineteenth-century travel writer, a woman who left England twice in her life, once to go as far as Edinburgh. Favell Lee Mortimer's prose style can be best described as a mixture of cheer-filled didacticism and sudden, inexplicable vitriol. It is addictive to read; I will not type up the full, lengthly quote Pruzan offers up from another Mortimer joint, The Peep of Day; or, a Series of the Earliest Religious Instructions the Infant Mind is Capable of Receiving, but it is one of the funniest things I have read in my life. (The arresting opening: "God has covered your bones with flesh. Your flesh is soft and warm...") I mean, you can see why a person might pick up one of Mortimer's books by chance, flip idly through it, and immediately devote himself to putting her back in print.
By the book's middle I was frantically making bookmarks out of whatever came to hand. For a taste:
"The Russians are very fond of music and dancing, and the children are very quick in learning to dance and sing; but dancing and singing will not make them wise."
"You are ready to think the Swedes are a wise and good people. Not so. There is no country in Europe where so many people are put in prison."
"The religion they teach [in Ireland] is called the Roman Catholic religion. It is a kind of Christianity, but a very bad kind."
"But there are worse creatures than snakes in Lisbon— there are many murderers there. It is believed that many dead bodies are thrown by wicked people into the Tagus."
As Ryan O'Neal once said, "Victorian-era publishing means never having to provide sources."
You might notice that my favorite quotations come entirely from the section on Europe. Mortimer does cover the rest of the world, and it is mostly indistinguishable from more traditional sources of Victorian racism. What makes her commentary on Europe so funny is that so many of her stereotypes seem to have been more or less plucked out of a hat. (Are the Portuguese the clumsiest people in Europe? Science does not venture to say.)
After the racism in the African section, I was expecting the same across the board in her section on the US. Nope! Favell loves to surprise. "There are no slaves in the Northern States, but there are many blacks there; and perhaps you will think they are kindly treated as they are not slaves. Far from it. They are not beaten, it is true, but they are despised and insulted in every possible way. Is this not very wicked? Merely because they have a black skin."
Point to Mortimer. She was an Evangelical— not a surprised affiliation— which meant that she followed a church that was part of the vanguard of the British anti-slavery movement. Probably she would have preferred if the white people of the northern United States had taken the opportunity to enlighten their brethren on the evils of Catholicism, as she often so does. I could wish that more historical context was provided by Pruzan, beyond a brief summary of historical context. But that is a small criticism of this slight, entertaining book.
By the book's middle I was frantically making bookmarks out of whatever came to hand. For a taste:
"The Russians are very fond of music and dancing, and the children are very quick in learning to dance and sing; but dancing and singing will not make them wise."
"You are ready to think the Swedes are a wise and good people. Not so. There is no country in Europe where so many people are put in prison."
"The religion they teach [in Ireland] is called the Roman Catholic religion. It is a kind of Christianity, but a very bad kind."
"But there are worse creatures than snakes in Lisbon— there are many murderers there. It is believed that many dead bodies are thrown by wicked people into the Tagus."
As Ryan O'Neal once said, "Victorian-era publishing means never having to provide sources."
You might notice that my favorite quotations come entirely from the section on Europe. Mortimer does cover the rest of the world, and it is mostly indistinguishable from more traditional sources of Victorian racism. What makes her commentary on Europe so funny is that so many of her stereotypes seem to have been more or less plucked out of a hat. (Are the Portuguese the clumsiest people in Europe? Science does not venture to say.)
After the racism in the African section, I was expecting the same across the board in her section on the US. Nope! Favell loves to surprise. "There are no slaves in the Northern States, but there are many blacks there; and perhaps you will think they are kindly treated as they are not slaves. Far from it. They are not beaten, it is true, but they are despised and insulted in every possible way. Is this not very wicked? Merely because they have a black skin."
Point to Mortimer. She was an Evangelical— not a surprised affiliation— which meant that she followed a church that was part of the vanguard of the British anti-slavery movement. Probably she would have preferred if the white people of the northern United States had taken the opportunity to enlighten their brethren on the evils of Catholicism, as she often so does. I could wish that more historical context was provided by Pruzan, beyond a brief summary of historical context. But that is a small criticism of this slight, entertaining book.
May 14, 2024
This book was originally written in the mid-1850s by a woman who had never left England and was highly prejudiced against other cultures. It's so politically incorrect that it's hilariously (though unintentionally) ignorant and ridiculous at times. This was the age of discovery and exploration, revolutionary wars and religious upheaval, slavery and modern thinking.
(One of the saddest aspects of this books is how ungracious she was toward people and cultures that she didn't understand or didn't meet her British standards. I also thought it was regrettable that she claimed to be a Christian, yet held to a strict form of legalism that clouded her assessment of others. She believed in British superiority as many people did in her day.)
Overall it was a fun book that made me laugh a lot on just how ignorant she was on subjects she claimed authority on. You have to laugh because it's completely absurd at times. Here is a sampling of some of the country information:
SCOTLAND - They are very grave, and not fond of jokes; however, they like music, and can sing some very pretty songs; but you would not like the sound of their bagpipes. The noise is almost as ugly as the creaking of a door, or the squalling of cats.
RUSSIA - The people run so fast in the streets that you would think they were running for their lives; and so they are, for if they were to stand still, they would be frozen.
POLAND - The Poles love talking, and they speak so loud they almost scream; and they are proud of this, and say that the Germans are dumb.
SICILY - There are many murderers who have need of a hood to hide their faces. Often there is a sharp dagger under the cloak.
NORWAY - There are often famines, and then sawdust is mixed with bread, and the poor cows are fed on a sort of paste made up of rubbish of various sorts.
CHINA - The religion of Taou teaches men to act like madmen. The religion of Buddha teaches them to act like idiots. The religion of Confucius teaches them to act like wise men, but without souls.
EGYPT - Knowing nothing themselves, they bring up their children in ignorance.
BRITISH AMERICA (CANADA) - The people of British America are our fellow-subjects, while those in the United States are not.
BRAZIL - This immense country is the daughter of that small country called Portugal. Thus Mexico is the daughter of Spain; and the United States is the daughter of England. All of these have been rebellious daughters, and have refused to obey their mothers.
Etc. Etc. Etc.
I thought that the editor's notes were especially helpful before each country because it gave the context of the culture at the time and helps us understand what Mrs. Mortimer was referring to sometimes.
(One of the saddest aspects of this books is how ungracious she was toward people and cultures that she didn't understand or didn't meet her British standards. I also thought it was regrettable that she claimed to be a Christian, yet held to a strict form of legalism that clouded her assessment of others. She believed in British superiority as many people did in her day.)
Overall it was a fun book that made me laugh a lot on just how ignorant she was on subjects she claimed authority on. You have to laugh because it's completely absurd at times. Here is a sampling of some of the country information:
SCOTLAND - They are very grave, and not fond of jokes; however, they like music, and can sing some very pretty songs; but you would not like the sound of their bagpipes. The noise is almost as ugly as the creaking of a door, or the squalling of cats.
RUSSIA - The people run so fast in the streets that you would think they were running for their lives; and so they are, for if they were to stand still, they would be frozen.
POLAND - The Poles love talking, and they speak so loud they almost scream; and they are proud of this, and say that the Germans are dumb.
SICILY - There are many murderers who have need of a hood to hide their faces. Often there is a sharp dagger under the cloak.
NORWAY - There are often famines, and then sawdust is mixed with bread, and the poor cows are fed on a sort of paste made up of rubbish of various sorts.
CHINA - The religion of Taou teaches men to act like madmen. The religion of Buddha teaches them to act like idiots. The religion of Confucius teaches them to act like wise men, but without souls.
EGYPT - Knowing nothing themselves, they bring up their children in ignorance.
BRITISH AMERICA (CANADA) - The people of British America are our fellow-subjects, while those in the United States are not.
BRAZIL - This immense country is the daughter of that small country called Portugal. Thus Mexico is the daughter of Spain; and the United States is the daughter of England. All of these have been rebellious daughters, and have refused to obey their mothers.
Etc. Etc. Etc.
I thought that the editor's notes were especially helpful before each country because it gave the context of the culture at the time and helps us understand what Mrs. Mortimer was referring to sometimes.
January 6, 2018
This book is a collection of English travel guides, written in around 1855, by a wonderfully judgy bitch named Mrs Mortimer.
No country emerges unscathed.
Some of her criticisms echo stereotypes that we're familiar with:
Other criticism contrary to contemporary stereotypes:
This is a fun book to flip through at one's leisure. Each country is a few pages, which one can read in between other activities over time. It'd be a great book to keep in a bathroom. I can't imagine shotgunning this like a novel.
No country emerges unscathed.
Some of her criticisms echo stereotypes that we're familiar with:
"The most striking features in the character of the [Native American] Indian are BRAVERY and CRUELTY. The children are encouraged to torment animals. The mother smiles to see her little ones tearing little birds to pieces."
"Though Mexico [City] is so beautiful at a distance, the streets are narrow and loathsome, and the poor people, walking in them, look like bundles of old rags."
"[The Jews] have eyes like a hawk and noses like a beak. They are fine looking men -- such as you might imagine David and Solomon were. The rich Jewesses wear bright turbans, adorned with diamonds and rubies. But all the Jews are not rich. Some are miserably poor. The Jews are not idle like the Poles, but try in every way to get money."
Other criticism contrary to contemporary stereotypes:
"[The people of Spain] are not like the French, lively and talkative: they are grave and silent. They are not active like the Scotch, but cold and distant; nor fond of home like the English, but fond of company. Yet they are cruel, and sullen, and revengeful."
This is a fun book to flip through at one's leisure. Each country is a few pages, which one can read in between other activities over time. It'd be a great book to keep in a bathroom. I can't imagine shotgunning this like a novel.
May 22, 2020
This books wasn’t bad... I just felt, about a third of the way through, that I wasn’t sure what I was getting out of it. The author didn’t go to any of the places she visited. She had bad things to say about everyone, which was cheeky in a PC culture. But, if she didn’t go there, was she making things up? If she was making things up, how would I know? I don’t know nearly enough about cultures of the world during the 1800s to know! The America section was interesting because I did have that context.
In all, I kept reading because I realized her travel writing helped to form the opinions of maaaaany Victorian people. So, for better or worse, I was learning what they thought of the people of the world.
In all, I kept reading because I realized her travel writing helped to form the opinions of maaaaany Victorian people. So, for better or worse, I was learning what they thought of the people of the world.
February 19, 2020
The introduction was nice and first I thought it was hilarious but as I read on it just got repetitive. I skipped all the additions of the author because they really add nothing at all to the book and what it's about. After about ten countries I was like "okay, they were lazy, smelly and had no god, I get it". I had to really force myself to keep going.
It would have been nice if the author would maybe have commented on what was said instead of these random facts before every chapter. I found it hard sometimes to distinguish what was true and what not which also diminished the fun a bit.
Would not recommend, sorry.
It would have been nice if the author would maybe have commented on what was said instead of these random facts before every chapter. I found it hard sometimes to distinguish what was true and what not which also diminished the fun a bit.
Would not recommend, sorry.
March 29, 2024
Mmmhh. I guess this was written pre modern-day travel literature, when people try and find the curious, interesting, and good things about other places.
This book is the complete opposite. Every country is lazy, sly, untidy, uneducated, and cruel heathens, eating their neighbours (in the case of pretty much all African and American native tribes) and killing their wives without a second thought or regret. This makes each country's description almost interchangeable with each other and I can't say I found it very funny - just repetitively petty.
This book is the complete opposite. Every country is lazy, sly, untidy, uneducated, and cruel heathens, eating their neighbours (in the case of pretty much all African and American native tribes) and killing their wives without a second thought or regret. This makes each country's description almost interchangeable with each other and I can't say I found it very funny - just repetitively petty.
June 10, 2022
This really wasn't my cup of tea, but I'm glad to have read this for the experience rather than the original, since this one has some added explanations and criticism of the original author's bias and ignorance. My biggest takeaway from this was how similar being able to publish anything back then is to being able to publish anything online now. I wonder how much added harm came to the world from this woman perpetuating such negative stereotypes about other countries and cultures.
March 2, 2025
Sadly, I liked the intro more than the book, which read like a funny magazine piece.
The concept of the entire book is interesting but actually reading it isn’t that enjoyable. An old white British lady from the 1800s somehow became a travel writer but never actually travelled. Her commentary on far-off places that she never visited is both cringeworthy bc racism, sexism, religious bigotry, etc, but also deadpan funny at times. It just got old after a while. I rushed through the last half.
The concept of the entire book is interesting but actually reading it isn’t that enjoyable. An old white British lady from the 1800s somehow became a travel writer but never actually travelled. Her commentary on far-off places that she never visited is both cringeworthy bc racism, sexism, religious bigotry, etc, but also deadpan funny at times. It just got old after a while. I rushed through the last half.
July 6, 2019
To sum up: If you’re not a British Protestant you’re doing it wrong. I’ll be honest, I skimmed quite a bit. A little of Mrs. Mortimer goes a loooong way.
Read
July 31, 2011A dizzyingly misanthropic tour of the world by a bitter, sexually frustrated, angry, bigoted Victorian woman who never left Great Britain, written for children but with adult levels of intolerance and vitriol. Mortimer is the epitome of the "wogs begin at Calais" Weltanschauung, with a more than medium dose of apopleptic anti-Papism, the result being a text of high comedic and camp value. The editor provides a useful, entertaining, and well-researched introduction. I wish that this had been a complete reprinting of the original texts, though, and not just a best-of. As it is, even the passage that reveals who the clumsiest people in Europe are supposed to be gets left out, unless I somehow missed it. (My vote: the Dutch.) When she got to North America, I was bracing myself for painful passages about African-Americans and American Indians. The section on Indians was, for the era, rather familiar boilerplate, with its mix of romanticism and weirdly juxtaposed ethnographic nuggets; nothing out of the ordinary there. When she got to American blacks, however, it was suddenly the most enlightened view that one could expect from someone of Mortimer's time and place. Aside from a slur of "laziness"—which she attributed to social causes, the disincentives of slavery, and not to biology, as many of her contemporaries did—it was astoundingly sympathetic. Mortimer, after all, for all her intolerances, was an abolitionist, and abolitionism did somewhat soften the hearts and sharpen the minds of even the most retrograde Victorian chauvinists (if only because it was a way of lording English virtue over the moral backwardness of Spaniards, Boers, and American Southern whites). In fact, the only three nations of which she has nothing negative to say are Denmark, Jamaica, and Haiti. Go figure.
December 31, 2016
This is essentially an edited and snipped version of Mrs. Mortimer's original travel guides. Pruzan's introduction was amusing and certainly sets the tone for the book, but the rest of it is all Mrs. Mortimer's proper, Protestant, incredibly cynical "guide" to the countries and continents of the world. As is expected from a lady of the time (England, mid-1800s), she had never actually travelled the world, instead compiling most of her information from other (many outdated) travel guides, encyclopedias, and other works.
Mrs. Mortimer finds something wrong with every country discussed (including England), usually resorting to shaming their drinking, smoking, and "idle" habits, as well as seriously shaming any religion or beliefs that weren't Protestant--essentially everyone else worshiped idols and/or the devil. Given the time period this was written, there are inevitably some terms and slurs that certainly would be grounds for a scandal today.
For those who are easily offended by any shaming of any other culture (even those that they aren't a part of, which certainly isn't a bad thing), it probably would not be a good idea for you to read this. For those who are less sensitive to this, or simply interested in historical geography, as long as you keep the culture and background in mind, this would be a fun gift book, or simply a quick and amusing read (especially as filler for reading challenges!)
Mrs. Mortimer finds something wrong with every country discussed (including England), usually resorting to shaming their drinking, smoking, and "idle" habits, as well as seriously shaming any religion or beliefs that weren't Protestant--essentially everyone else worshiped idols and/or the devil. Given the time period this was written, there are inevitably some terms and slurs that certainly would be grounds for a scandal today.
For those who are easily offended by any shaming of any other culture (even those that they aren't a part of, which certainly isn't a bad thing), it probably would not be a good idea for you to read this. For those who are less sensitive to this, or simply interested in historical geography, as long as you keep the culture and background in mind, this would be a fun gift book, or simply a quick and amusing read (especially as filler for reading challenges!)
Read
June 9, 2010Mrs. Favell Lee Mortimer wrote Sunday school tracts for young children in mid-19th century England. She traveled abroad but twice in her life: once to Brussels and Paris, and once to Edinburgh. However, that did not stop her from writing children's geography books that covered the world, according to her world view. On the Italians: " What sort of people live in Italy? They are very dark, because the sun shines so much. They have dark hair and eyes,--not those bright, merry black eyes you see in France, but more sad and thoughtful eyes. They may well be sad, for their country is in a sad state. It is full of fine houses and palaces--empty and going to decay--but that is not the worst part--the people are ignorant and wicked.
"Their religion is the Roman Catholic."
On Rome: "This is the capital of Italy, and once it was the capital of the world. It was a wicked city then, full of idols and cruelty--and it is a wicked city now. Here the Pope lives. He is the chief of all the priests of the Roman Catholic religion."
Mrs. Mortimer's armchair travels provided an evening of mildly scandalous entertainment at our house when the book was passed around the table with participants reading the most outrageous passages aloud. I certainly can't think of any other purpose for the book.
"Their religion is the Roman Catholic."
On Rome: "This is the capital of Italy, and once it was the capital of the world. It was a wicked city then, full of idols and cruelty--and it is a wicked city now. Here the Pope lives. He is the chief of all the priests of the Roman Catholic religion."
Mrs. Mortimer's armchair travels provided an evening of mildly scandalous entertainment at our house when the book was passed around the table with participants reading the most outrageous passages aloud. I certainly can't think of any other purpose for the book.
July 1, 2016
A collection of passages from the titular Mrs Mortimer's geography books, aimed at children, from the mid-19th Century. Famously (as the book's lengthy and interesting introduction tells us) she only left England twice in her life, and cobled together her opinions on the outside world from books, journals and popular hearsay. As a result, what the reader gets is a breezy tour of the globe through the eyes of a grouchy and virulently Protestant middle-aged English woman, with all the xenophobia, racism and bizarre assumptions that would entail. Two things in particular struck me while reading: first, her tone is warm but sterm, writing like a schoolmistress to probably very young children, which lends the book an extra layer of discomfort. Secondly, it's sad how many casual cultural stereotypes are still held today. Her passages on the evils of "Mohamedian belief" for instance could come straight out of a right-wing politician.
Unfortunately, once the initial novelty wears off, the book itself is not really very fun to read. I learned a good few things about contemporary history and the like, sure, but Mrs Mortimer's style is very repetitive and ended up exhausting me. Definitely a bad idea to read this in only a couple of sittings.
Unfortunately, once the initial novelty wears off, the book itself is not really very fun to read. I learned a good few things about contemporary history and the like, sure, but Mrs Mortimer's style is very repetitive and ended up exhausting me. Definitely a bad idea to read this in only a couple of sittings.
October 1, 2012
This was a fun little discount read. A well-organized collection of the writings of the utterly bizarre Mrs. Mortimer - a Victorian lady from England who, though she never traveled, wrote extensively on travel, foreign countries and people. And how much she hated them. And how dirty they were.
Which is striking, because she never even went to Wales, a few miles from her home. Aside from a childhood visit to Belgium and a short term to Edinburgh, the woman hardly left her house. Oh, and she also wrote terrifying (and popular) children's books, from a harshly anti-Catholic moral and religious stance.
The book's jacket says it best. The value of this book is largely in looking up 'who your ancestors were, and what was wrong with them', and will generate some laughs. If you are easily offended by hideous ignorance and racism, I would avoid, but if you can laugh at the premise, then there is something to enjoy here, in a limited sense. I wouldn't really call it the kind of book you would just sit down and read, however, because the characterizations start to become monotonously similar.
Which is striking, because she never even went to Wales, a few miles from her home. Aside from a childhood visit to Belgium and a short term to Edinburgh, the woman hardly left her house. Oh, and she also wrote terrifying (and popular) children's books, from a harshly anti-Catholic moral and religious stance.
The book's jacket says it best. The value of this book is largely in looking up 'who your ancestors were, and what was wrong with them', and will generate some laughs. If you are easily offended by hideous ignorance and racism, I would avoid, but if you can laugh at the premise, then there is something to enjoy here, in a limited sense. I wouldn't really call it the kind of book you would just sit down and read, however, because the characterizations start to become monotonously similar.
August 6, 2016
This travel book is quite amusing and entertaining though it was not written to be comedic. Mrs. Mortimer's Victorian pronouncements are so absurd and inaccurate that we in the modern era can only laugh at what she has to say. No country mentioned in the book escapes her poison. She has something to say about each country's level of cleanliness, its work ethic, its morality, its attractiveness, its children, etc. What's most remarkable is she writes with such conviction about places she hasn't visited. I got a good laugh out of this. She has a very interesting writing style. She's very direct. She asks a question and then she answers her own question. It's a simple straightforward narrative. There's no point getting upset over what Mrs. Mortimer has to say. She's exposing the prejudices of a bygone era although one could argue such sentiments can be found even here in the USA today.
If you like to travel you'll like this book. If you like Victorian England get this book. Get it even if you don't like to Victorian England or travelling. I'm sure you'll be entertained.
If you like to travel you'll like this book. If you like Victorian England get this book. Get it even if you don't like to Victorian England or travelling. I'm sure you'll be entertained.
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