The British Tourist. A New Game

London: E. Wallis, c. 1840. No binding. Very good. A 65-space board game which guides the traveling player through the colorful landscapes and country-sides of the British Empire, at least according to the game's proper title. In fact, the scenes depicted are located solely in Great Britain proper, even if some hint at imperial interests further afield - spaces 9, 11, 32, and 44 all show tall masted ships departing for far-off destinations. The scenes themselves are typically bourgeois in taste, portraying country estates, castles or ruins thereof, quaint pastoral cottages, aqueducts, bridges, and vistas reminiscent of the era's landscape painters (the early work of J. M. W. Turner comes readily to mind). The 65th and final space is, naturally, George IV's cottage at Windsor. Game in twelve sections mounted on linen, as issued, but lacking appropriate slipcase. Illustrations largely unsullied and minimally abraded, verso of linen with pencil ownership markings and some staining, else despite absences a very good example of the ties between tourism, imperialism, and patriotism.