Sir Walter Scott

This postcard provides a significant view of the impact Walter Scott's writing had on the tourism industry of Scotland. The map featured on the front provides a tour route centred around a poem Scott wrote in 1810 that celebrated the area of Loch Katrine. This poem gained immense popularity in Great Britain and helped to kickstart a new trend of literary tourism. While Loch Katrine, the setting of “The Lady of the Lake”, was already an established tourist location, Scott’s writing shone a new light on it and it became sought after as a vacation spot ("The Lady of the Lake"). This impact lasted over 100 years, the British medical journal noting even in 1922 that tourists come to see the romantic scenery that had been described in Scott’s writings(“Loch Lomond and the Trossachs” 206). The fact that a tour and a postcard have been made about Scott's work is just further evidence as to how influential Scott's work was to the public.

A steam engine that still does tours of Scotland named after Sir Walter Scott.

The travel routes on this postcard are also informative, as the tour uses boats and trains as the primary source of transportation. This is significant as before technology such as steam engines were introduced, tourists had to travel either through carriages, horseback or by walking which was more treacherous modes of transport and could take a significantly longer time(Durie 28-29). Once these more efficient modes of transport became available it helped to bolster the tourist population in the country as it allowed people to see the country in a quicker and safer fashion. The inclusion of these more advanced transportation methods on the postcard signals technological advancements in Scotland, as it became more modernized in the early to mid-nineteenth century.