Thanks heavens for Mrs Favell Lee Mortimer for, without the things that today make the world an easier place to know, she managed to tell the people of the mid nineteenth century all they needed to know about life as it is lived in all four corners of the world. Over three volumes, Mrs Mortimer provided a succinct, if blunt, guide to the peoples of Europe, Asia, Australia, the Americas and Africa. Those three volumes have been condensed into the single book reviewed here.
She starts with Europe asking first “What is the character of the English?”
“They are not very pleasant company because they do not like strangers, nor taking much trouble…They are often in low spirits, and are apt to grumble, and to wish they were richer than they are, and to speak against the rulers of the land. Yet they might be the happiest people in the world; for there is no country in which there are so many bibles.”
