Old Calabria was published by Martin Secker in 1915, and it is widely regarded as one of the finest travel books in the English language — a work whose combination of scholarship, sensuality, wit, and precision set the standard for a century of travel writing. D.H. Lawrence (himself a formidable writer about Italy) called it “the most interesting book about Italy written by an Englishman.”
Douglas traveled through Calabria and Apulia (the extreme south of mainland Italy) in the years before World War I — a region then desperately poor, barely connected to the modern world, rich in classical ruins and medieval churches, and inhabited by people whose customs (Douglas argued) preserved elements of Greek and Roman culture that had survived two millennia of poverty and neglect.
The book’s method is discursive: Douglas walks through landscapes and towns, and the physical environment triggers learned digressions on classical history, botany, geology, folklore, local saints, architecture, and cuisine. He moves between periods and registers with extraordinary fluency — a description of a church facade leads to a discussion of Norman architecture, which leads to the political history of the region, which leads to an anecdote about a modern peasant whose behavior unconsciously preserves an ancient ritual.
Douglas writes with a combination of erudition and sensuality that is unique: he knows the classical sources, the botanical names, and the architectural terms, but he also responds to food, wine, warmth, and physical beauty with an intensity that makes his scholarship feel embodied rather than academic.
Collecting Old Calabria
First edition (Martin Secker, London, 1915): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $100–$350
- First edition without jacket: $20–$50
- Limited editions (1920s): $60–$150