Wardrop opens not with Georgia but with a Damascus inn, where four travelers—two Frenchmen, an Italian, and an Englishman—pass a vote of censure on Lamartine for over-romanticizing Baalbek. This anecdote serves as a disclaimer: Wardrop promises a plain, unpoetic account. The preface then pivots to his stated aim: to excite British curiosity about a country he deems practically unknown. He notes that even well-educated people confuse Georgians with Circassians and are unsure whether Georgia lies under Persian, Turkish, or Russian rule. The book thus positions itself as a corrective, offering notes of travel supplemented by historical, literary, and political sketches, specimens of national music, and a compendious bibliography.

The Preface as a Travel-Writing Manifesto

The preface is the most revealing section for understanding Wardrop’s method. He recounts how Lamartine’s Voyage en Orient ruined Baalbek for the group by raising expectations too high. Wardrop’s response is to reject poetic license outright: “the following pages are not written by a poet.” He frames his own work as a straightforward record, meant to “excite curiosity” rather than to dazzle. This rhetorical move is both a critique of Romantic travel writing and a bid for credibility. The preface also establishes a conversational tone—addressing the reader as “gentle sir”—and a self-deprecating humor that recurs in the main text. Notably, Wardrop includes a rider to the vote: “poets should be discouraged from writing books of travel.” This sets up a tension between his professed plainness and the book’s subtitle, which promises a “land of women, wine, and song.”

Historical Narrative as Political Chronicle

The excerpts from the historical section read as a dense, rapid-fire chronicle of Russian expansion in the Caucasus. Wardrop lists governors, battles, treaties, and revolts with little embellishment: “Tsitsishvili marched against Baku, where he was treacherously murdered by the Khan of that city in 1806.” The pace is relentless—kings are dethroned, blinded, or killed; plagues sweep through; and revolts are “crushed by force of numbers.” Wardrop occasionally inserts a value judgment, as when he praises Prince Vorontsov for “honest and painstaking efforts” and notes with national pride that Vorontsov was “English by birth and education, if not by blood.” These asides reveal a British imperial perspective, but the overall tone is that of a compendium. The catalog subject “Georgia (Republic) — Description and travel” is accurate, but the excerpts show that the book devotes substantial space to political and military history, not just travel impressions.

The Bibliography as a Reader’s Gateway

Wardrop repeatedly emphasizes that his notes are meant to “excite curiosity” and that the means of gratifying it are in the bibliographical section. This self-referential structure is unusual: the travelogue itself is framed as an appetizer, with the bibliography as the main course for serious readers. The catalog includes “Georgia (Republic) — Bibliography” as a subject, and the excerpts confirm that Wardrop compiled a “compendious bibliography” of works on Georgia. In the preface, he writes that “not one person in a thousand knows that the Georgians and Circassians are distinct peoples,” implying that his book will correct such ignorance. The bibliography thus serves as a tool for further study, aligning with the book’s stated goal of informing rather than entertaining. This scholarly apparatus, combined with the historical sketches and music specimens, makes the work more of a reference guide than a typical travel narrative.

Readers should approach The Kingdom of Georgia as a hybrid work: part travel memoir, part historical digest, part bibliographic guide. Wardrop’s voice is that of a Victorian gentleman-scholar who values accuracy over atmosphere, yet his subtitle hints at the allure of the exotic. The book rewards those who read its preface carefully, as it sets the terms for what follows. For a full picture, consult the bibliography and the historical sketches alongside the travel notes.