The diaries of Henry Peerless provide a fascinating insight into one of the most important social trends of the past 150 years: the rise of mass tourism following the coming of the railway.
For thirty years this Brighton businessman travelled all round the British Isles and beyond, by horse-drawn carriage, steam-train, steam-ship, bicycle and motor-car. The daily records of his journeys – only recently rediscovered, and now published for the first time – is not just a lively travelogue from a vanished world: it also paints an unforgettable picture of a whole class of people striving for diversion and pleasure at a time of unprecedented and cataclysmic change.
Henry Peerless himself emerges as a cross between Mr Pooter and Mr Toad: irrepressibly high-spirited (even after the death of his son Cuthbert in the Great War), fond of practical jokes, patriotic, sometimes pompous but always good-hearted, he had an almost childlike zest for discovering new places and embracing new fashions, and it is this which makes him such an engaging companion and guide.
Cover painting specially commissioned from award-winning artist Tim Layzell (www.timlayzell.com)

Saturday 2 June 1917. Down to Haynes Garage to see Tom and Beattie oiling up their motors. It was quite delightful to see B. getting gloriously dirty and oily over it, and I could not help thinking how things have changed and how women have broadened in their views and actions – why, my dear sir, when I was a boy, do you think a woman would have got gloriously grubby and dirty oiling anything? Certainly not.
From A Brief Jolly Change: The Diaries of Henry Peerless, 1891–1920 edited by Edward Fenton

ISBN 0 953 2213 5 0/978 0953 2213 5 6; 320 pp + 8 pp illustrations; £19.95 hardback

Reviews

‘A remarkable find, beautifully handled. … Deserves to become a classic’ – Paul Minet, The British Diarist

‘Full of life and crammed with incident’ – Chris Weir, Family Historian Magazine

‘This is a charming piece of social history. TV producers, take note: this would make a great feel-good nostalgia series, a sort of Edwardian bicycling James Herriot. Anyone know when Stephen Fry is available?’ - Rob Ainsley, The London Cyclist

‘Fascinating’ – John Saumarez Smith, Country Life

Missing Words

Henry Peerless’ manuscript diaries comprise 27 pocket-sized notebooks, covering every year from 1891 to 1920, with just two gaps. No diary was kept for the year 1913 – and the diary for 1902 has unfortunately been lost.
According to a later note, the 1902 diary described a holiday in the New Forest with Henry Peerless’ wife Millie, their children Cuthbert, Reggie and Gladys, and a Mr and Mrs Artie Lindo. If you know of its whereabouts, please contact diaries@day-books.com and help to solve a century-old literary mystery! 

The New Forest Inn, Emery Down, Hampshire. ‘The landlord did not favourably impress me,’ Henry Peerless wrote on 29 May 1917. ‘I was unable to make up my mind whether he was mad or not. He muddled on about the old inn having been a caravan left by the French, and pointed out several antiques in the walls. We had quite a difficulty to shake ourselves free.’