Burton Holmes. Travelogues. The Greatest Traveler of His Time

In a time before air travel or radio, Burton Holmes set out across the globe. The “world’s greatest traveler” visited nearly every country on the planet, bringing home more than 30,000 photographs, 500,000 feet of film, and unbelievable travel stories that first exposed America to some of these far-flung, mysterious lands. A rare window onto the world of 100 years ago.

It was the Belle Époque, a time before air travel or radio, at the brink of a revolution in photography and filmmaking, when Burton Holmes (1870–1958) began a lifelong journey to bring the world home.

From the grand boulevards of Paris to China’s Great Wall, from the construction of the Panama Canal to the 1906 eruption of Mount Vesuvius, Holmes delighted in finding “the beautiful way around the world” and made a career of sharing his stories, colorful photographs, and films with audiences across America. He coined the term “travelogue” in 1904 to advertise his unique performance and thrilled audiences with two-hour sets of stories timed to projections of multihued, hand-painted glass-lantern slides and some of the first “moving pictures.”

Paris, Peking, Delhi, Dubrovnik, Moscow, Manila, Jakarta, Jerusalem: Burton Holmes was there. He visited every continent and nearly every country on the planet, shooting over 30,000 photographs and nearly 500,000 feet of film. This book represents the best of the Holmes archive, brimming with brilliant color photographs. A rare window onto the world of 100 years ago, it is also the ultimate inspiration to strike out on a travel adventure of your own.

The editor

In the 1960s, Genoa Caldwell was the New York-based photo researcher for the London Sunday Times, as well as photo editor for both Black Starand Magnum. While operating her own photo agency in Los Angeles in the 1970s, Caldwell was introduced to the work of Burton Holmes and became private archivist for the extensive and unique photographic collection. Caldwell has maintained the collection for over 30 years and has lectured and published on the life and work of Burton Holmes.

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