Spain through true blue eyes

Richard Ford is now a forgotten figure and we must be grateful to Ian Robertson for bringing him to life in this scholarly biography. His Handbook for Travellers in Spain was published in 1845 by John Murray as one of his guides for the middle-class tourists who had replaced the aristocrats of the Grand Tour. It must count as the most learned, long and lively guidebook ever published: a monster of 1,064 pages. But his interests extended beyond his hispano- phile concerns and expertise on Spanish painting, making him a much respected figure in London literary and artistic circles in the early years of Queen Victoria.

Ford early made picture-buying Grand Tours. But he was not a landed aristocrat, rather a well-heeled member of the professional upper-middle class with aristocratic connections; a Wykehamist, he sent his son to Eton. In 1824 he married the illegitimate daughter of the Earl of Essex.