This set of essays by William Gilpin formalises his personal views on the 'picturesque'. The idea of the picturesque was a popular one in the late eighteenth century, emerging as a backlash against earlier ideas of symmetry and proportion.

Gilpin was one of the early proponents of the picturesque landscape and wrote several books on the subject. These often took the form of edited journals of tours he had taken throughout Britain in the summer months. The routes taken by Gilpin – down the River Wye, through Devon & Cornwall, to the Lakes, into Scotland – were followed by both professional and amateur artists alike, and Gilpin's recommendations were taken into account when sketches were made. Gilpin believed that an artist could use their own license to make a view more picturesque that these essays exemplify; one passage, for instance, recommends that the water in a lake be made to appear rougher than it is in reality by paying particular attention to the slightest undulations of the surface.