WORDSWORTH, Christopher. La Grèce pittoresque et historique, Paris, L. Curmer, 1841.

Christopher Wordsworth (1807-1885) became Bishop of Lincoln in 1868. An excellent classical scholar and the author of numerous theological works, he visited Greece during 1832-1833 and was the first British citizen to be received by King Otto (Othon).

His two most memorable works, "Athens and Attica... and Greece, pictorial, descriptive…", are written in a style authoritative since the seventeenth century but free of the pretentiousness of those erudite works in which mythology, observations on contemporary geography and demography, scholarly comments and observations made on the spot are mixed in a hazy manner. A tireless investigator, Wordsworth gives us rigorous descriptions, especially of archaeological sites, makes frequent references to classical authors and enthusiastically records what he sees around him. For all these reasons, his work was an immediate success. For the illustrations of his books, Wordsworth borrowed drawings from publications by H. Belle and the "Expédition Scientifique de Morée", as well as by C.R. Cockerell, Choiseul-Gouffier, Hervé, J.Stuart/N. Revett and others.

The present edition is the translation of “Greece, pictorial, descriptive…” into French. The image collection does not include all of the images of the book but only those plates which were not published in the original English edition whose illustrations are also available on the website.

Written by Ioli Vingopoulou