A Northern Summer

The Dictionary of National Biography claims he did not fight in the wars due to lack of health,[2] while Carr himself writes in A Northern Summer that he volunteered for military conscription along with many other men from his hometown in Totnes, however was rejected.

The military powerhouse of France with its efflorescent cultural society radically transformed as early as the 17th century starkly contrasted England in the midst of its Industrial Revolution, suffering from the effects of its growing yet struggling economy.

This idea of cultural and moral “overcompensation” and inner identity conflict is explained more in detail as how “on tour, an Englishman might display his personal superiority before both continentals and other Englishmen despising the best and costliest that Europe could produce: at home, nothing English could compare with what he had seen abroad”.

However, Britain’s relationship with its most hostile adversary found in France helps clarify to what extent Carr is likely to approach locals of other countries.

By approaching travel more as a quest than a danger, British men were in this manner able to strengthen their outward image as an adventurist, pioneer or hero.

[8] Carr presents an exceptional case of a 19th century traveler in Europe who was not directly involved with the Napoleonic Wars or the British military.

Carr acknowledges that not many Englishmen have traveled to his desired destinations very often in recent times, and neither have northern European scholars published much on their own nations.

The Dictionary of National Biography states that his publications enjoyed temporary popular success due to its "light, gossipy style".

[2] The book is mentioned by Thomas Finlayson Henderson in his article on Sir John Carr in the Dictionary of National Biography (vol.

[10] and also in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (revised by Elizabeth Baigent, 2004), where it is said that Carr was knighted, soon after the publication of A Northern Summer and The Stranger in Ireland (1806).