THE CLASSIC CONTINENTAL TRAVELER’S COMPANION

This brief collection of travel writings from the nineteenth century marries excellent writing with competent readers. Michael York's elegant diction brings us Dickens's impressions of Rome, most memorably his musings on the Christian persecutions. Paris and Versailles through the eyes of Mark Twain are delivered in a confidential tone by Scott Brick, while Don Schlossman adopts a more reportorial style for Washington Irving's visit to Stratford-upon-Avon. Interspersed are fragments of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's narrative ex-patriot poem "Aurora Leigh," given a sensuous, if saccharine, treatment by Gabrielle de Cuir. Though she expresses the longing in Robert Browning's "Oh, To Be in England," one wonders why a male voice wasn't used. J.B.G. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/SEP 02]