John George Freeman was born in 1846 in Marylebone, London. A cloth merchant by trade, he and his brothers, Charles and Joseph, were keen proponents of the burgeoning mass-transit tourism of the late nineteenth century. The three brothers travelled widely across Britain in the 1870s, with John keeping beautifully illustrated diaries of their adventures throughout. John died shortly after their last holiday in 1883, at the age of thirty-six.
If you're stuck for something to read on your next train journey you'd have to go a long way to find a more diverting way to pass the time. Scotsman Personal and quirky, accompanied by brilliant pen drawings of the characters and landscapes encountered, these diaries give us an authentic voice from the past and take us on a journey back in time to a country at once so familiar, yet at the same time so distant ... a fascinating slice of Victorian life. Scotland on Sunday A gem of a book, which entertainingly describes rail travel in the 1870s, with some remarkable similarities to today's journeys. As the author himself would have put it, a capital volume . -- Christian Wolmar A treasure trove of Victorian delights - an undiscovered classic of rail travel. -- Michael Williams, author of On The Slow Train A great look at the social history of travel. The Bookbag