It’s not often that an essay on what I did in my holidays makes a good book, but Moritz’s account of his travels in England is truly charming. In part, it’s because Moritz comes across as such a wonderful traveller: he accepts almost everything in good spirit and with a cheerful optimism. In part, it’s because Moritz visits England because of his Anglophilia and proceeds to confirm, to himself at least, his love affair with a country that, until then, he had only read about.

For the present-day reader, the writer’s companionship is enlivened by his descriptions of England in 1782. Because Moritz preferred to walk, innkeepers thought he was a tramp and treated him abominably, but he remains good humoured throughout. He visited the House of Commons and saw Pitt and Fox debating, as well as a Member asleep on a bench in the House (some things don’t change), writes of rowdy theatre goers chucking orange peel at the stage and the propensity of English schoolboys to get into fights. A fascinating contemporary account.