William Cecil Slingsby and Elizabeth Le Blond in Norway: transnational mountaineering, modernity and temporality, 1870–1910

Drury, Christian

Abstract

In both William Cecil Slingsby’s Norway. The Northern Playground (1904) and Elizabeth Le Blond’s Mountaineering in the Land of the Midnight Sun (1908), Norway is presented as an alternative destination for British mountaineers at the beginning of the twentieth century. Reflecting the increasing popularity of Norway with travellers, both Slingsby and Le Blond saw their journeys as temporal. For Slingsby, this was searching for an Old Norse past which connected to Britain; for Le Blond, it was as an escape from modernity. Yet both depicted the tensions of modern travel; mountaineering in particular was an activity dependent on modern infrastructure and technology. Moreover, both, and especially Slingsby, were part of transnational networks of mountaineers, constructing Norway as a tourist landscape. The texts of Le Blond and Slingsby offer important insights into British imperial travel culture at the time, as well as the transnational histories of mountaineering and modernity.

Citation

Drury, C. (online). William Cecil Slingsby and Elizabeth Le Blond in Norway: transnational mountaineering, modernity and temporality, 1870–1910. Studies in Travel Writing, https://doi.org/10.1080/13645145.2025.2462540

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 31, 2025
• Online Publication Date: Mar 3, 2025
• Deposit Date: Mar 4, 2025
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 4, 2025
• Journal: Studies in Travel Writing
• Print ISSN: 1364-5145
• Electronic ISSN: 1755-7550
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13645145.2025.2462540
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3671636