A Little Tour in France

A Little Tour in France is a travel book by Henry James, based on a trip he took through provincial France in the autumn of 1882 and first published in book form in 1884. It is one of the most relaxed things he ever wrote, free of the worry about plot and psychology that drives the fiction, and it has stayed in print as a kind of quiet classic of nineteenth century travel writing.

James set out from Tours and worked his way south and west through the chateaux country, the Auvergne, parts of Provence, and back up through Burgundy. He was not trying to see everything or to discover anything new. The aim was to look properly at towns most English speaking visitors hurried past on their way to Paris or the Riviera, and to write down what was actually there. He notices church facades, hotel meals, the conversation in cafes, the look of small market squares in the rain.

What makes the book still readable is the prose. James in travel mode is less ornate than James in late novel mode. He moves quickly from a description of an old cathedral to a sharp aside about the people sharing his railway carriage, and the tone is warm without being sentimental. He clearly likes France a great deal, but he is also funny about French cooking when it disappoints him and about the difficulty of getting any information out of any Frenchman who has decided not to give it.

The book pairs well with his English Hours and Italian Hours, the two later companion volumes on the other countries he loved. Of the three, A Little Tour in France is probably the most cheerful. Readers who only know James through The Portrait of a Lady or The Ambassadors will find a different writer here, more curious and less burdened, taking pleasure in small things.