A Tour, Performed in the Years 1795-6,

Maria Guthrie was the former director of a school for the education of Russian noblewomen in St. Petersburg (the Smolny Institute). Her husband, Matthew Guthrie, was physician to the first and second Imperial corps of noble cadets. Maria travelled south to Crimea in 1795 in order to seek out a warmer climate as her health had deteriorated. Accompanied by her servant and the German naturalist Peter Simon Pallas she wrote to her husband who remained in Petersburg of her observations. These letters which detail her antiquarian, historical, botanical, and ethnological investigations were edited by Matthew and form the basis of the present travel narrative.

The recipient of the book, Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee (1747-1813), was Professor of Universal History at the University of Edinburgh.