39 1/4x24 1/2 inches, 99 1/2x62 1/4 cm. S.C. Allen & Company, London. Condition A-: minor creases and repaired tears in margins; repaired pin holes in corners, some slightly into image.
Thomas Cook started his travel agency business in 1841, starting with booking trains to take temperance societies out for day excursions around Britain. Growing from tours of a few hundred, in 1851, Cook arranged for 150,000 people to travel to the Great Exhibition in London. Later, when his son took over the family business, Thomas Cook & Son offered tours around Europe too. Cook's "circular tickets," which helped proliferate mass tourism in Italy, allowed travel by train for a preset number of days along specific routes, and his hotel coupons worked in concert with train accommodations. In 1928, the company was bought by the Belgian manufacturer Wagons-Lits (which operated the Orient Express) to form the Wagons-Lits/Cook World Travel Service.
