Tag Archives: guide book

Ricardo’s Bookshelf: Lucy & Ethel’s London Guide Book

ethels-london-guide
Ethel Refers to a Fodor’s Britain 1955 guide book, Lucy Meets the Queen ,I Love Lucy Season 5

In the Season 5 episode  Lucy Meets the Queen the Ricardos and the Mertzes arrive in London, and Lucy and Ethel go to the palace in hopes of seeing the Queen. Ethel is seen referring to a copy of the  Britain 1955 edition of  Fodor’s Modern Guides – Lucy is hoping  to catch a glimpse of the Queen but gets distracted when she tries  in vain to make one of the palace guards smile, and as a result she misses her chance when the Queen does come out.

fodors-britain-1955
Britain 1955 edition of the Fodor’s Modern Guides series.
Fodor's Britain1955
The original dust cover for the book Ethel is holding would have been like this one.

The guide book Ethel refers to is titled Britain 1955  from the Fodor’s Modern Guides series – Fodor’s Modern Guides, Inc was founded in 1949 to provide practical information for tourists, with updated yearly editions . For that era, this was new concept in guides books which  became essential  for the 1950’s traveler.

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Currently there appears to be a copy at :
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=8649948430
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