10V Elias Burton Holmes THE BURTON HOLMES LECTURES 1905 Complete Set Gilt Lettering Color Frontispieces Lavishly Illustrated Color & Black and White Travelogue Travel Korea Japan Greece Morocco China Russia Railway Europe Corsica Paris Exposition Yellowstone Arizona Hawaii Sahara Africa
Title: The Burton Holmes Lectures
Author: Elias Burton Holmes - Elias Burton Holmes was an American traveler, photographer and filmmaker, who coined the term "travelogue". Travel stories, slide shows, and motion pictures were all in existence before Holmes began his career, as was the profession of travel lecturer; but Holmes was the first person to put all of these elements together into documentary travel lectures.
Publisher: McClure, Phillips & Co.
City: New York
Year: 1905
Binding Style: Hardcover
Number of Volumes: 10 Full Set: Yes
Width: 7.25" Height: 10"
Book Details: This complete ten volume set is bound in tan cloth with green and gilt spine titles. Each volume features a color frontispiece with a labeled tissue-guard, and all are lavishly illustrated with illustrations from photographs by the author, as well as other color plates with labeled tissue-guards. These volumes chronicle the world travels of Burton Holmes.

Initially Holmes had only modest success as a travel lecturer. Then in 1897, John L. Stoddard retired, creating something of a vacuum in the field. Around the same time, Holmes began to supplement his hand-colored glass slides with the then excitingly new technology of moving pictures. As the years went on, film came increasingly to dominate his lectures.

In the years that followed, Holmes traveled extensively: North and South America, Europe, Russia, India, Ethiopia, Burma (now Myanmar). He lectured about such topics as the Panama Canal, the "Frivolities of Paris," even the adventures of Richard Halliburton, one of his competitors in the travel lecture profession. He visited the first modern Olympics in 1896, rode the first trans-Siberian train, and shot what may be the first movies ever made of Japan, in 1899. In the course of his travels, he crossed the Atlantic and Pacific oceans more than 50 times. As Holmes became more well known he brought along assistants to shoot film and stills while he made notes for his lectures, and he also employed a business manager. With the rise of Hollywood, Holmes began to make short travel films for Paramount and later Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Holmes's talks—which totaled over 8000 by the end of his life—drew their largest audiences in cosmopolitan cities like New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. He catered especially to the armchair traveler with escapist fantasies, and for this reason he consciously focused his lectures on the most agreeable and scenic aspects of the places he lectured about. He avoided all discussion of politics, poverty, and other social ills.

Condition / Notes: This complete antique set shows well with some indications of age and wear, including shelfwear and rubbing to high points. Some volumes may displays light soiling to the boards/spines. The bindings and text blocks are sound. The text and voluminous illustrations are clear and crisp through mild age toning. Volume one has an extensive personal inscription on the front pastedown.

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