Florence (Vol. 1&2)

The object and plan of this book is somewhat different from that of any other guides at present before the public. The author's purpose is not to direct the stranger through the streets and squares of an unknown town toward the buildings or sights which he may desire to visit; still less is it his design to give him practical information about hotels, cab fares, omnibuses, tramways, and other everyday material conveniences. For such details, the traveller must still have recourse to other trusty books. The author desires to supply the tourist who wishes to use his travel as a means of culture with such historical and antiquarian information as will enable him to understand, and therefore to enjoy, the architecture, sculpture, painting, and minor arts of the towns he visits. His object is to give the reader in a very compendious form the result of all those inquiries which have naturally suggested themselves to my own mind during thirty-five years of foreign travel, the solution of which has cost myself a good deal of research, thought, and labour, beyond the facts which I could find in the ordinary handbooks.

Grant Allen (1848-1899) was a Canadian science writer and novelist, educated in England. He was a public promoter of evolution in the second half of the nineteenth century. Allen was one of the pioneers in science fiction and also many histories of detective fiction mention Allen as an innovator.