UNCOMMON REGENCY LADIES

By Kristine Hughes

Part 2

MARIANA STARKE - Regency Travel Writer

Mariana Stark wrote the first travel guides to Europe whilst also living a very uncommon Regency life. Born in 1762, her father was governor of Fort St. George, Madras, India, where she spent her childhood. Realizing her desire to write for the stage, Mariana's first play was performed at London's Haymarket Theatre in 1788, a second play in 1798 appearing at Covent Garden Theatre. Who knows what fame and fortune Mariana could have realized had she not given up this career to go to Italy, where she spent seven years caring for a consumptive relative. However, this interlude gave her first hand knowledge of the country and would be her first hand writing voice which would make her travel accounts so vivid and so popular.

She returned to England in 1811 and settled in Exmouth, going back to Italy between 1817 and 1819 in order to research her "Travels on the Continent," published by John Murray in 1820. This book was followed by "Information and Directions for Travellers on the Continent which, by 1824, was in it's fifth printing. Like the later Egon Ronay, Mariana rated sites, painting and other points of interest, but with exclamation points, rather than stars. She offered a brief historical background on each town, supplied distances, posting stages, recommended hotels and provided costs. She assured travellers that street lamps were now common, "by which the streets of every considerable town are tolerably well lighted, the stop put thereby to the dreadful practice of assassination, and the dismissal of fear with respect to Banditti." She went on to assure tourists that bandits were now rare between Naples and Rome and that guards were no longer necessary. Travel hints included the use of a chamber-lock, which could be attached to a hotel door in five minutes and she offered a list of London coachmakers who used springs rather than leather straps, which could deteriorate in warmer climates. Oil of lavender, she offered, would drive fleas from hotel beds.

Other practical information included the fact that a four wheeled carriage was charged four guineas to be taken across the English Channel, with a charge of three guineas per horse and five shillings for dogs. By 1836, her "Travels in Europe" had been expanded to include foreign market prices for produce, meat, etc., maps and 712 pages of pertinent information. Mariana never married and supported herself by her writing. She died at the age of 76 years in 1838 on her way from Naples to England.

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