Travellers' Checks | 1930s Hong Kong, seen through the eyes of Burton Holmes, inventor of the word ‘travelogue’
On his seventh visit to the colony, the American filmmaker told the local press that the short films he shot in Hong Kong were among the most popular sections of his travelogues
Though he is not well remembered today, the arrival in Hong Kong of Burton Holmes was a newsworthy event. The American director enjoyed visiting the colony, and the short films he shot here, he told the local press in May 1932, “have proven among the most popular sections of his travelogues”.
A pioneer of the travel documentary, Holmes is said to have coined the term “travelogue” and – according to The Hongkong Telegraph – “wherever Burton Holmes goes, there follows in his wake a motley throng, who view his travelogue films in the picture theatres of the world”. This report came out during his seventh visit to Hong Kong since the late 1890s. Over about six decades, Holmes spent roughly half of his time travelling the world and half in America, entertaining audiences in lecture halls, theatres and, later, cinemas, first with personally narrated lantern slide shows and eventually with documentary films.
Holmes died in 1958, aged 88, and in 1960 was remembered with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2006, art-book publisher Taschen packaged a selection of the filmmaker’s photographs and travelogue transcripts in a coffee-table volume titled Burton Holmes Travelogues: The Greatest Traveler of His Time , 1892-1952. It will be republished this month in a smaller, more affordable edition in Taschen’s Bibliotheca Universalis series.
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