Index

to

Pictorial and descriptive guide to Ilfracombe, Barnstaple, Bideford, Woolacombe, and North-West Devon

PART 1: Pages iii to clxxxvi

10th ed rev., London, Ward, Lock & Co. Ltd. (1920), 81 pp.

Prepared by Michael Steer

The Guide, in its 10th edition, is an interesting product of the booming West Country tourism industry. Besides its myriad pleasantly evocative photographs, the book is a treasury of commercial advertisements of North Devon's post-World War business-boom. Its author claims that the region is well served by "rail, steamer and motor routes" and that these have brought the region within reach of a great many people to whom it was previously not well known. The Bideford area is promoted as being of particular interest to American visitors. The Guide's publishers, Ebenezer Ward and George Lock starting a publishing concern in 1854 that became known as "Ward and Lock". Based originally in Fleet Street, it outgrew its offices and in 1878 moved completely to Salisbury Square. London publisher Samuel Orchart Beeton was obliged (as a result of the financial Panic of 1866) to sell his titles and name to Ward Lock; this gave them the rights to his late wife's Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management. The Red Guides (of which this book is a typical example) for which Ward Lock became renowned, were initially acquired in the early 1880s, when the company bought Shaw's respected list of tourist guides. This rare and much sought-after book was produced digitally by Google from a copy in the University of California Library collection and can be downloaded from HathiTrust. Google has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. These books, on which copyright has expired, are available for free educational and research use, both as individual books and as full collections to aid researchers.