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JAMES GREY TURNER : 1909 ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT TRAVEL DIARY OF A VOYAGE TO ITALY NAPLES AND TUNIS BY A BANKER WHO WOULD ONE DAY BE THE PATRIARCH OF A FAMILY OF FAMOUS DOCTORS

8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. On offer is a fascinating, original manuscript diary handwritten by James Grey Turner of London England. James, besides writing an extraordinary 94 page travel diary, [with ephemera, mostly postcards (90)] of his trip through the Middle East and Mediterranean including Naples then Tunis was married to Evelyn and together they birthed a very famous son; George Grey Turner [bio info to follow]. Turner explains the trip on the first page: "The 30th Sept. 1909 was the date fixed upon which I was to cease work with the firm Lloyd's Bank Limited, the successors of Lambton and Company, "The Bank in Newcastle upon Tyne and elsewhere." My wife and I had often built "Castles in the Air" when looking forward in past years, to such a time actually arriving. We had after grave thought and considerations decided to give up housekeeping and in future (for a time at least) to "live in our boxes." We did so with greater confidence seeing that Jim was the only one left to us at home and he being to all appearances in capital health and well able to look after himself in "digs" of the most comfortable kind that we thought we had found for him. So on the 8th, October 1909 we left No. 1 Queen's Road in the company of Lily, bound for London which was to be the first stage of our trip to Naples, where we quite hoped to stay the winter that both my wife and I might benefit by change of climate and the sunny shores of Italy." Things do not work out the way they wanted and much of the diary is spent in Tunis. One of the highlights is their meeting with the famous painter Louis Gage Mason and his wife and tucked in are two photo postcards of each. It seems that the diary has been handed down by James Grey Turner to his son George Grey Turner and then it was handed down to his son Elston as evidenced by the handwritten inscription on the first page that says "To Elston from Grammie, Xmas 1930." BIO NOTES: George Grey Turner was born in 1877 and was an English Surgeon. He received a Fellowship from the Royal College of Surgeons in 1903, and served with the Royal Army Medical Corps in the First World War. As a young surgeon he travelled around the world, being received by the Pope, Mussolini, the King of Italy and King Alfonso of Spain. Five years before his death, Grey Turner was made President of the International Society of Surgeons. After the war, Grey Turner was briefly famous for performing one of the earliest operations to attempt the removal of a bullet from a soldier's heart. The bullet was never removed, but Grey Turner's surgery saved the patient's life. During the following decades, Grey Turner worked with early cancer research and anticipated the development of Chemotherapy. A type of bruising, Grey-Turner's sign, was named after the surgeon. His name plate is pasted to the inside front cover of the journal. The 7" x 9" x 1 ½" book's binding is cracked, some pages excised and overall fairly worn but overall G.. Manuscript. Book Condition: Good

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