A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain

Written from journeys made across England, Scotland and Wales, A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain describes the country through a sequence of circuits rather than a single continuous itinerary. Defoe records ports, roads, market towns, farms, mines, manufactures, estates and rapidly expanding urban centres, paying close attention to what each region produces and how goods and people move between local economies and London.

The work is both travel writing and an extensive survey of Britain in the 1720s. Defoe’s admiration for commerce, improvement and population growth is balanced by observations on poverty, damaged landscapes, regional difference and the uneven consequences of economic change. It preserves a detailed portrait of early Georgian Britain before industrialisation and modern transport transformed many of the places he visited.