This is an edition of the previously unpublished Grand Tour correspondence of Richard Pococke (later Bishop of Ossory) and his cousin Jeremiah Milles (later Dean of Exeter) who, together in 1734 & 1736 embarked on two tours of the Continent, with Pococke famously continuing his travels to the East (1737-41). Their travels are recorded in an extensive collection of letters (from Pococke to his mother and from both cousins to their uncle, Thomas Milles, Bishop of Waterford & Lismore) and a collection of travel journals.
Volume 1 reproduces the edited Grand Tour letters from the first voyage (1733-34) and contains biographies not only of the two correspondents, but also of the recipients of their letters, Mrs. Pococke, who lived in Highclere, near Southampton, and Bishop Milles, who resided in the Bishop's Palace, Waterford. It also reconstructs the deleted passages from the Pococke letters, which give a fascinating insight into the author's financial problems, including his dealings with his banker, John Bagwell of Clonmel, and instructions to his mother regarding the purchase of his wigs and the management of his wardrobe. Such details, together with his his keen and at times uncharitable observations on human nature, offer the reader an alternative view of a man once described as "the dullest man that ever travelled."
Dr. Rachel Finnegan is a lecturer at Waterford Institute of Technology. She has written on the connoisseurship of the 2nd Earl of Bessborough, the Divan Club, Bishop Pococke's improvements to St. Canice's Cathedral Kilkenny, and her new edition of Richard Twiss's A Tour of Ireland in 1775 was published in 2008 by University College Dublin Press.
Editor: Rachel Finnegan