Sultry climates : travel and sex

The sexual motives of travel are rarely spelled out.

Travel books, guides and brochures favour a more wholesome approach.

But in the shadows there is an alternative story made up of just the details that usually go unmentioned.

It is this that Ian Littlewood explores.If we want to make sense of the Grand Tour, we must take account of Boswell's visits to Dresden streetwalkers and Venetian courtesans, as well as to Dresden Gallery and the Doge's palace.

To understand the Victorian passion for the Mediterranean, we must be aware of the sensual revelation it offered people as diverse as Fanny Kemble, and E.M.

Forster. Byron's travels in Greece, Christopher Isherwood's in Germany or Joe Orton's in Morocco, were sexual rebellion as much as conventional tourism.Women as well as men, gay people as well as straight, are the subject of this book.