This monograph is devoted to the study of the guidebook --- one of the most in-demand book genres. Its functions, stylistic boundaries, and peculiarities of existence in the Russian provinces in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries are defined. For the first time, the guidebook is examined as a multifunctional phenomenon of mass culture. In addition to its universally recognized reference function, its role in shaping stereotypes of tourist behavior, in creating specific constructs of mass culture --- tourist attractions; in image-making for territories, etc., is explored.
The study is based on provincial guidebooks covering five macro-regions of Russia: the European North, Crimea, the Volga region, Siberia, and the Urals. The information collected in them provides an idea of the stereotypes, opinions, assessments, and territorial reflections characteristic of a regional community at a certain historical stage.
The book is addressed not only to historians and cultural scholars, but also to a wide audience --- to everyone interested in the phenomenon of mass culture and its integral part --- tourism.