This volume contains an account of a pedestrian tour by Mr. Collins in Cornwall, a county to which railways had not yet penetrated at his time. Leaving Plymouth behind him, the author, and his artist friend, Mr. Brandling, threaded the county from St. Germains to the Lizard and the Land’s-End; visiting the most remarkable places, whether of art or nature, and whether the natural attractions were of the quietly beautiful, the desolate, or the magnificent kind. Mr. Collins, as a pedestrian, was of necessity thrown much among the people; and he has picked up many traits of their character, as well as some curious traditions. There are also matters of a more utilitarian cast, but popularly treated—as a mine, the pilchard fishery, an economical survey of the condition of the poor.

William Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) was an English novelist, playwright, and writer of short stories. He was hugely popular in his time, and wrote 27 novels, more than 50 short stories, at least 15 plays, and over 100 pieces of non-fiction work. His best-known works are The Woman in White (1860), The Moonstone (1868), Armadale (1866) and No Name (1862). His works were classified at the time as 'sensation novels', a genre seen nowadays as the precursor to detective fiction and suspense fiction. He also wrote penetratingly on the plight of women and on the social and domestic issues of his time. His novel, No Name combined social commentary - the absurdity of the law as it applied to children of unmarried parents - with a densely-plotted revenge thriller. Amongst his other works are: Basil (1852), Hide and Seek (1854), After the Dark (1856), The Frozen Deep (1857), The Queen of Hearts (1859), Man and Wife (1870), The New Magdalen (1873), The Law and the Lady (1875), The Two Destinies (1876) and A Rogue's Life (1879).

You’ve gotta love those travel documentaries with celebrities awkwardly trying to make their interactions with locals seem impromptu and organic. Perhaps it’s best to let the writers express the escapism of travel. And why not leave travel writing to Wilkie Collins, the star of Victorian-era mystery and thriller novels? In "Rambles Beyond Railways", Collins exchanges his London ale for a Cornish pasty when he writes of his travels around Cornwall. While the Victorians were crazy about building railways, rail access didn’t extend to the whole of Cornwall. Instead, Collins goes by foot across Cornwall with his friend, Henry Brandling, who provided illustrations for the original publication. True to his love of the sensational, Collins explores the enchanting Cornish locations whence stories of ghostly shipwrecks and semi-mythical kings originated. Get lost in Collins’s Cornwall instead of Jeremy Clarkson’s ill-fitting jeans. London-born Wilke Collins (1824-1889) became known in Victorian England for his novels and plays, sometimes writing together with Charles Dickens. His most famous works, "The Woman in White" (1859) and "The Moonstone" (1868), are examples of the first modern detective novels.