The author, Isabella Pennock Huston (1822-1889) writes of her eight month travel journey to France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, England, and Scotland.

Excerpt from Superficial Glimpses of Travel In offering an apology for the title of this volume, I am sure the indulgent reader will unite with me in thinking that an eight months trip, spent in passing from one city to another, of the several ones we visited, does not afford much opportunity of looking beneath the surface. We can visit the great works of art; the ruins, churches, museums, etc., and glance at them; staying between whiles at hotels mostly filled with Americans, every arrangement being made with a view to please them. But we see almost nothing of the life of the people, their manners, customs and habits. We are generally ignorant of their language, and pass away from them with very indefinite ideas, little that can be gathered from actual observation. I should think it would take years to bring us into that sympathy with them, that would allow us truly to appreciate national characteristics. Therefore I feel as if the survey I have taken can only be called superficial. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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Laura Fraser grows up in Sydney, motherless, with a cold, professional father and an artistic bent. Ravi Mendis lives on the other side of the globe -- exploring the seductive new world of the Internet, his father dead, his mother struggling to get by.Their stories alternate throughout Michelle de Kretser's ravishing novel, culminating in unlikely fates for them both, destinies influenced by travel -- voluntary in her case, enforced in his. With money from an inheritance, Laura sets off to see the world, eventually returning to Sydney to work for a publisher of travel guides. There she meets Ravi, now a Sri Lankan political exile who wants only to see a bit of Australia and make a living. Where do these two disparate characters, and an enthralling array of others, truly belong? With her trademark subtlety, wit, and dazzling prose, Michelle de Kretser shows us that, in the 21st century, they belong wherever they want to and can be -- home or away. "It is not really possible to describe, in a short space, the originality and depth of this long and beautifully crafted book." -- A.S. Byatt, The Guardian

In Church and Estate, Thomas Rzeznik examines the lives and religious commitments of the Philadelphia elite during the period of industrial prosperity that extended from the late nineteenth century through the 1920s. The book demonstrates how their religious beliefs informed their actions and shaped their class identity, while simultaneously revealing the ways in which financial influences shaped the character of American religious life. In tracing those connections, it shows how religion and wealth shared a fruitful, yet ultimately tenuous, relationship.