From London to Land's End

From London to Land's End is a travelogue written late in the life of the English author Daniel Defoe and first published in 1724. Later generations have often included it in A Tour thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain as one of its "letters." The book is narrated in the first person in epistolary form: the author sets out from London and travels southwest through Surrey, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorset, and Devon, finally reaching Land's End at the western tip of Cornwall, the westernmost point of mainland England. Defoe combines the perspectives of novelist and journalist: he describes the towering cathedral spire of Salisbury, the military port and maritime bustle of Plymouth, country markets, and the rise and fall of the wool trade, while also recording roads, bridges, house construction, farm cultivation, fishing harvests, and local dialects. The text is interwoven with extensive discussion of prices, taxes, the settlement of migrants, and the rise and fall of towns. For example, he recalls having advised the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Godolphin, to settle poor refugees from the Palatinate on the New Forest wasteland. The value of the work lies not only in its scenic description but also in the cross-section it presents of early eighteenth-century British social transformation: commercial expansion, improved transport, fluctuations in local economies, and a newly formed sense of "British" national identity. The prose is detailed, the tone curious with a slight critical edge, and it is an important text for understanding the tradition of British travel literature and Defoe's non-fiction writing.