A friend of Charles Darwin and a social activist respected by John Stuart Mill, Alfred R. Wallace (1823-1913) was an outstanding nineteenth-century intellectual. Wallace, renowned in his time as the co-discoverer of natural selection, was a young schoolteacher when he began his exciting career as an explorer-naturalist, and set off for Brazil in 1848 with Henry Walter Bates. A Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro (1853) is the stimulating and engaging result of this first expedition and a precursor to his best-selling Malay Archipelago (1869). The depth and breadth of Wallace's observations in this book as naturalist, anthropologist and geologist are remarkable, and it is tantalising to learn that half his notes and 'the greater part of [his] collections and sketches' were lost at sea when his ship was burned on his voyage home.

This book places Bird's visit to Japan in the context of her worldwide life of travel and gives an introduction to the woman herself. Supported by detailed maps, it also offers a highly illuminating view of Japan and its people in the early years of the 'New Japan' following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, as well as providing a valuable new critique on what is often considered as Bird's most important work. The central focus of the book is a detailed exploration of Bird's journeys and the careful planning that went into them with the support of the British Minister, Sir Harry Parkes, seen as the prime mover, who facilitated her extensive travels through his negotiations with the Japanese authorities. Furthermore, the author dismisses the widely-held notion that Bird ventured into the field on her own, revealing instead the crucial part played by Ito, her young servant-interpreter, without whose constant presence she would have achieved nothing. Written by Japan's leading scholar on Isabella Bird, the book also addresses the vexed question of the hitherto universally-held view that her travels in Japan in 1878 only involved the northern part of Honshu and Hokkaido. This mistaken impression, the author argues, derives from the fact that the abridged editions of Unbeaten Tracks in Japan that appeared after the 1880 two-volume original work entirely omit her visit to the Kansai, which took in Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe and the Ise Shrines. Bird herself tells us that she wrote her book in the form of letters to her sister Henrietta but here the author proposes the intriguing theory that these letters were never actually sent. Many well-known figures, Japanese and foreign, are introduced as having influenced Bird's journey indirectly, and this forms a fascinating sub-text.

"As my sense of the turpitude and guilt of sin was weakened, the vices of the natives appeared less odious and criminal. After a time, I was induced to yield to their allurements, to imitate their manners, and to join them in their sins . . . and it was not long ere I disencumbered myself of my European garment, and contented myself with the native dress. . . ."--from "Narrative of the late George Vason, of Nottingham"
As George Vason's anguished narrative shows, European encounters with Pacific peoples often proved as wrenching to the Europeans as to the natives. This anthology gathers some of the most vivid accounts of these cultural exchanges for the first time, placing the works of well-known figures such as Captain James Cook and Robert Louis Stevenson alongside the writings of lesser-known explorers, missionaries, beachcombers, and literary travelers who roamed the South Seas from the late seventeenth through the late nineteenth centuries.
Here we discover the stories of the British buccaneers and privateers who were lured to the Pacific by stories of fabulous wealth; of the scientists, cartographers, and natural historians who tried to fit the missing bits of terra incognita into a universal scheme of knowledge; and of the varied settlers who established a permanent European presence in Polynesia and Australia. Through their detailed commentary on each piece and their choice of selections, the editors--all respected scholars of the literature and cultures of the Pacific--emphasize the mutuality of impact of these colonial encounters and the continuity of Pacific cultures that still have the power to transform visitors today.

This original, witty, illustrated study offers the first analytical history of the rise and development of literary tourism in nineteenth-century Britain, associated with authors from Shakespeare, Gray, Keats, Burns and Scott, the Bronte sisters, and Thomas Hardy. Invaluable for the student of travel and literature of the nineteenth century.

Led by Cole Porter in the 1920s, Americans demonstrated that the best season to visit the French Riviera was not the winter, as had been the practice, but the summer. With this shift, Americans became the dominant shapers of tourism on the Riviera in the 20th century, yet the American achievement in revolutionizing the economy of the South of France is largely unsung. This insightful history details the American influence on the Riviera and the contributions of several individuals. It pays particular attention to such writers and artists as Edith Wharton, Gerald Murphy, Henry Clews, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, whose work drew energy from their stays in the Riviera and in turn helped to cement an idyllic image of the Riviera in the American popular consciousness.

Ever since Roman tourists scratched graffiti on the pyramids and temples of Egypt over two thousand years ago, people have travelled far and wide seeking the great wonders of antiquity. In From Stonehenge to Samarkand, noted archaeologist and popular writer Brian Fagan offers an engaging historical account of our enduring love of ancient architecture-the irresistible impulse to visit strange lands in search of lost cities and forgotten monuments. Here is a marvellous history of archaeological tourism, with generous excerpts from the writings of the tourists themselves. Readers will find Herodotus describing the construction of Babylon; Edward Gibbon receiving inspiration for his seminal work while wandering through the ruins of the Forum in Rome; Gustave Flaubert watching the sunrise from atop the Pyramid of Cheops. We visit Easter Island with Pierre Loti, Machu Picchu with Hiram Bingham, Central Africa with David Livingstone. Fagan describes the early antiquarians, consumed with a passionate and omnivorous curiosity, pondering the mysteries of Stonehenge, but he also considers some of the less reputable figures, such as the Earl of Elgin, who sold large parts of the Parthenon to the British Museum. Finally, he discusses the changing nature of archaeological tourism, from the early romantic wanderings of the solitary figure, communing with the departed spirits of Druids or Mayans, to the cruise-ship excursions of modern times, where masses of tourists are hustled through ruins, barely aware of their surroundings. From the Holy Land to the Silk Road, the Yucatan to Angkor Wat, Fagan follows in the footsteps of the great archaeological travellers to retrieve their first written impressions in a book that will delight anyone fascinated with the landmarks of ancient civilization.

The Irish-American physicist, academic and traveller John Freely wrote more than sixty lively books on travel, history and science before he died in 2017, aged 90. But It was Istanbul, where he emigrated with his family in 1960 to take up a post teaching physics at the American Robert College, that turned him into a writer. His first book, 'Strolling Through Istanbul' – written with his fellow academic Hilary Sumner-Boyd – was an instant success when it was published in 1972 and has never been out of print since. With the exception of Oğuz, so thin that he was known as The Ghost because he barely cast a shadow, everyone in John Freely's rumbustious memoir, including the author himself, is larger than life. Bohemian Istanbul was a haven for myriad misfits who found their feet in the city. Clamorous, glamorous, eccentric, cosmopolitan and frequently outrageous, they included the 'berserker' Peter Pfeiffer, a resourceful exile with three passports; Aliye Berger, the beautiful queen of bohemian Pera; the writer James Baldwin and, fleetingly, the future Pope John XXIII. This elegy for a lost world encapsulates the flavour of their daily life and nightly excesses. Well lubricated with lemon vodka and Hill Cocktails served by Sumner-Boyd's gloomy housekeeper, 'Monik Depressive', the Freely crowd weave their way from the Galatasaray fish market and the taverns of Çiçek Pasajı to the Russian restaurant Rejans, and frequently on to the Freely household on the Bosphorus hills, where a party will soon be in full swing and eggnog flowing freely. 'Stamboul Ghosts' is lllustrated with Ara Guler's poignant black-and-white photographs, which make of Freely's beloved city an evocative stage-set.

Ibn Battutah - ethnographer, biographer, anecdotal historian and occasional botanist - was just twenty-one when he set out in 1325 from his native Tangier on a pilgrimage to Mecca. He did not return to Morocco for another twenty-nine years, travelling instead through more than forty countries on the modern map, covering seventy-five thousand miles and getting as far north as the Volga, as far east as China and as far south as Tanzania. He wrote of his travels, and comes across as a superb ethnographer, biographer, anecdotal historian and occasional botanist and gastronome. With this edition by Tim Mackintosh-Smith, The Travels of Ibn Battutah takes its place alongside other indestructible masterpieces of the travel-writing genre. Designed to appeal to the book lover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

On the Wonders of Land and Sea: Persianate Travel Writing initiates a comparative study of non-European travel writers in the eastern Islamic or Persianate world from the eighteenth to early twentieth centuries. The essays in this volume discuss travel narratives by male and female Muslim and Parsi/Zoroastrian travelers in the Hijaz, Iraq, Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, India, and Europe. Focusing on the literary and linguistic aspects of the travelogues, the essays reveal links to traditional forms of narrating travel and the introduction of hybrid forms of discourse. The authors' methodological approach situates the texts in their socio-historical contexts and the travelers in their geographical locations, taking into account their gender and national identity. Each essay investigates a Muslim or Persianate traveler, whether sojourning in Europe or another part of the eastern world, and explores how the narrator represents what she or he sees while questioning the social and historical transformations accompanying modernity. The aim of this collection is to take a step toward a more sustained critical discussion of travelogues by Muslim travelers in dialogue with other Muslim, Persianate, and European travelers.

Sailing six thousand miles in eighty days, Allcard makes the classic southern route trade-wind crossing westward, and not without incident-severe gales, thief-catching in Spain, avoiding a seductive blonde in Gibraltar, encountering sharks and shoals of flying fish, and narrowly escaping falling overboard to his death when knocked out by gear falling from aloft. Allcard's plan to dodge the worst of the hurricane season on his return voyage is not accommodated by the elements. Through gales and headwinds, and one terrible storm, he takes seventy-four days to reach the Azores from New York, arriving minus his mizzen mast, desperately exhausted, injured, and hungry. The next leg, to Casablanca, is enlivened by a female stowaway, before he makes a safe return to England. Whether describing the pleasures or the trials, the phosphorescent nights or the storms, the operation of his ship or his own introspections, Edward Allcard eloquently conveys his deep appreciation of the sea, and the escape from modern civilisation it offers him.

This is a collection of journals written by Japanese men and women--from samurai and other government officials to novelists and poets--who journeyed to America, Europe, and China between 1860 and 1920. The diaries faithfully record personal views of the countries and their cultures and sentiments that range from delight to disillusionment. At once an intimate account of the travellers' lives and a testimony to the greater struggles and advances of their cultures, Donald Keene's eloquent translation and commentary invites the reader to partake in the world as each person experienced it.

Whether looking for the sources of the Nile, the Niger, or the Amazon, penetrating the Australian outback, or searching for the Northwest Passage, the Victorians were intrepid explorers, zealously expanding the limits of science and human knowledge. In "Bright Paradise," Peter Raby describes brave voyages and gives us vivid and unforgettable portraits of the larger-than-life personalities of Charles Darwin, Alfred Wallace, and Henry Bates, glorious examples of Victorian energy and confidence. He also explores wider issues such as the growth of knowledge and the spread of the empire.

Witty, provocative, and exciting in the breadth of its research, this book charts an important period of scientific advance and transforms it into a compelling narrative.

In the summer of 1627, Barbary corsairs raided Iceland, killing dozens of people and abducting close to four hundred to sell into slavery in North Africa. Among those taken were the Lutheran minister Reverend Olafur Egilsson. Reverend Olafur (born in the same year as William Shakespeare and Galileo Galilei) wrote The Travels to chronicle his experiences both as a captive in Algiers and as a traveler across Europe (he journeyed alone from Algiers to Copenhagen in an attempt to raise funds to ransom the captives that remained in the Barbary States). He was a keen observer, and the narrative is filled with a wealth of detail-social, political, economic, religious-about both the Maghreb and Europe. It is also a moving story on the human level: we witness a man enduring great personal tragedy and struggling to reconcile such calamity with his understandingof God. The Travels is the first-ever English translation of the Icelandic texts. Until now, the corsair raid on Iceland has remained largely unknown in the English speaking world. To give a clearer sense of the extraordinary events connected with that raid, this edition of The Travels includes not only Reverend Olafur's first-person narrative but also a wealth of contemporary letters describing both the events of the raid itself and the conditions in North Africa under which the enslaved Icelanders lived. The book has Appendices containing background information on the cities of Algiers and Sale in the seventeenth century, on Iceland in the seventeenth century, on the manuscripts accessed for the translation, and on the book's early modern European context. The combination of Reverend Olafur's narrative, the letters, and thematerial in the Appendices provides a first-hand, in-depth view of early seventeenth-century Europe and the Maghreb equaled by few otherworks dealing with the period. We are pleased to offer it to the wider audience that an English edition allows.

Alfred Russel Wallace's The Malay Archipelago is a work of astounding breadth and originality that chronicles the British naturalist's scientific exploration of Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and New Guinea between 1854 and 1862. An intrepid explorer who earned his living by collecting bird skins, Wallace also catalogued the vast number of plant and animal species that inhabit this unique geographical area. In addition, he includes numerous observations on the people, their languages, and ways of living and social organization, as well as geological insights into the nature and activity of volcanoes and the destructive force of nature. Colourful personal anecdotes based on experiences during his travels also pepper the text. First published in 1869, The Malay Archipelago provided some of the initial evidence for the modern theory of evolution. Discursive, captivating, occasionally offensive, but always wonderfully descriptive, it remains one of the most extensive works of natural history ever compiled. The Earl of Cranbrook is an expert in the environmental biology of the Malaysian region, and has a special interest in the life and career of Alfred Russel Wallace. Stanfords Travel Classics feature some of the finest historical travel writing in the English language, with authors hailing from both sides of the Atlantic. Every title has been reset in a contemporary typeface to create a series that every lover of fine travel literature will want to collect and keep.

In 1951 the Australian writers Charmian Clift and George Johnston left grey, post-war London for Greece. Settling first on the tiny island of Kalymnos, then Hydra, their plan was to live simply and focus on their writing, away from the noise of the big city. The result is two of Charmian Clift's best known and most loved books, the memoirs Mermaid Singing and Peel Me a Lotus. Mermaid Singing relays the culture shock and the sheer delight of their first year on the tiny sponge-fishing island of Kalymnos. Clift paints an evocative picture of the characters and sun-drenched rhythms of traditional life, long before backpackers and mass tourism descended. On Hydra, featured in the companion volume, Peel Me a Lotus, Clift and Johnston became the centre of an informal community of artists and writers including the then unknown Leonard Cohen who lodged with them, and his future girlfriend Marianne Ihlen.

"Here H.V.Morton begins his wandering in the City, where Roman London began, and follows, westwards, the course of London's seventeenth and eighteenth-century expansion. He describes the London he has himself known, from the rich and arrogant city of his youth to the battered and shabby London of today. He gives vivid pictures of great Londoners of the past. He takes the reader with him about the famous streets and squares and buildings with an infallible eye for the odd, entertaining and interesting things to be found in the great city. In all, there are few aspects of London he does not touch upon. Here is a lasting memento for the overseas visitor, for Londoners in their thousands, and for all those readers for whom Mr. Morton has long been the perfect guide and the most entertaining companion." Contents Include: I Go in Search of London In Which I Go to the Tower of London I Go to London Bridge in the Early Morning Describes St. Paul's Cathedral and the Great Man Sir Christopher Wren, Who Built it A Walk Along the Strand from Temple Bar to Charing Cross I Turn on the Fountains in Trafalgar Square In Which I Go to Westminster Abbey I Visit the Houses of Parliament and See the New House of Commons I Go to St. James's Palace and Remember the Day When it Was a Refuge for Female Lepers How Piccadilly Became the Heart of the West End I See Regent's Park Visit the Zoo and Madame Tussaud's A Few Words About the Treasure Houses of South Kensington

'Out of the sea, as if Homer himself had arranged it for me, the islands bobbed up, lonely, deserted, mysterious in the fading light' Enraptured by a young woman's account of the landscapes of Greece, Henry Miller set off to explore the Grecian countryside with his friend Lawrence Durrell in 1939. In The Colossus of Maroussi he describes drinking from sacred springs, nearly being trampled to death by sheep and encountering the flamboyant Greek poet Katsumbalis, who 'could galvanize the dead with his talk'. This lyrical classic of travel writing represented an epiphany in Miller's life, and is the book he would later cite as his favourite. 'One of the five greatest travel books of all time' Pico Iyer

In mid-career, Michael Frayn took up his old trade of journalism, and wrote a series of occasional articles for the Observer about some of the places in the world that interested him. He wanted to describe 'not the extraordinary but the ordinary, the typical, the everyday', and his accounts became the starting point for some of the novels and plays he wrote later. From a kibbutz in Israel to summer rains in Japan, bicycles in Cambridge to Notting Hill at the end of the 1950s, they are glimpses of a world that sometimes seems tantalisingly familiar, sometimes vanished forever. Michael Frayn is the celebrated author of fifteen plays including Noises Off, Copenhagen and Afterlife. His bestselling novels include Headlong, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Spies, which won the Whitbread Best Novel Award and Skios, which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. "All writers of fiction should be required by law to go out and do a bit of reporting from time to time, just to remind them how different the real world in front of their eyes is from the invented world behind them." Michael Frayn 'Whether he's on a kibbutz or a bicycle, Frayn makes acute observations and the writing is enchanting.' Conde Nast Traveller

This is London in the eyes of its beggars, bankers, coppers, gangsters, carers, witch-doctors and sex workers. This is London in the voices of Arabs, Afghans, Nigerians, Poles, Romanians and Russians. This is London as you've never seen it before. Longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-fiction 2016 Shortlisted for the Ryszard Kapuscinski Award for Literary Reportage 2019 'An eye-opening investigation into the hidden immigrant life of the city' Sunday Times 'Full of nuggets of unexpected information about the lives of others . . . It recalls the journalism of Orwell' Financial Times 'Ben Judah grabs hold of London and shakes out its secrets' The Economist

Full of humor, profundity, and obsession, these are tales of writers on peregrine paths. Some set out in search of legends or artistic inspiration; others seek spiritual epiphany or fulfillment of a promise. Their journeys lead them variously to Dracula's castle, Laura Ingalls Wilder's prairie, the Grimms' fairy-tale road, Mayan temples, Nathaniel West's California, the Camino de Santiago trail, Scott's Antarctica, the Marquis de Sade's haunted manor, or the sacred city of Varanasi. All of these pilgrimages are worthy journeys-redemptive and serious. But a time-honored element of pilgrimage is a suspension of rules, and there is absurdity and exuberance here as well.

Wilfred Thesiger is one of this century’s greatest travellers and explorers. His books 'Arabian Sands' and 'The Marsh Arabs' have been hailed as classics of modern travel writing. This latest work, which follows on from his bestselling autobiography, 'The Life of My Choice', provides a compelling record of Thesiger’s thirty years in Kenya.

Lavishly illustrated by his magnificent photographs, this book contains superb evocations of Kenya’s vanishing tribal heritage, of the dramatic landscapes of Thesiger’s Kenya journeys, and intimately portrays his Samburu companions and surroundings at Maralal, where he has made his home.

“In 'My Kenya Days' admirers of Thesiger will find something quite new and rather startling”
ROGER CLARK, 'Daily Telegraph'

“A touching, elegiac book”
OBSERVER

“Absorbing reading … One really can taste, smell and see the living Africa”
IRISH TIMES

“More than a sum of its parts: it reads as a threnody for a world we have lost and which will never be recreated”
ANTHONY DANIELS, 'Sunday Telegraph'

“A book worth pondering deeply”
FRANK MCLYNN, 'Guardian'

'Only a man in the devil of a hurry would wish to fly to his mountains, forgoing the lingering pleasure and mounting excitement of a slow, arduous approach under his own exertions.' H.W. 'Bill' Tilman's mountain travel philosophy, rooted in Africa and the Himalaya and further developed in his early sailing adventures in the southern hemisphere, was honed to perfection with his discovery of Greenland as the perfect sailing destination. His Arctic voyages in the pilot cutter Mischief proved no less challenging than his earlier southern voyages. The shorter elapsed time made it rather easier to find a crew but the absence of warm tropical passages meant that similar levels of hardship were simply compressed into a shorter timescale. First published fifty years before political correctness became an accepted rule, Mischief in Greenland is a treasure trove of Tilman's observational wit. In this account of his first two West Greenland voyages, he pulls no punches with regard to the occasional failings, leaving the reader to seek out and discover the numerous achievements of these voyages. The highlight of the second voyage was the identification, surveying and successful first ascent of Mount Raleigh, first observed on the eastern coast of Baffin Island by the Elizabethan explorer John Davis in 1585. For the many sailors and climbers who have since followed his lead and ventured north into those waters, Tilman provides much practical advice, whether from his own observations or those of Davis and the inimitable Captain Lecky. Tilman's typical gift of understatement belies his position as one of the greatest explorers and adventurers of the twentieth century.

An anthology of 17th and 18th century travel writing that inspired the hugely popular Aubrey/Maturin series, collected and introduced by Patrick O'Brian, beautifully repackaged to mark the centenary of his birth. Patrick O'Brian has unearthed from obscurity the most dynamic travel writing of the seventeenth and eighteenth century. With his scholarly mind, editor's eye, and traveller's heart he brings together a series of thrilling seaward tales. Expertly chosen by O'Brian and prefaced with details that bring these extracts to vivid life, A Book of Voyages is a broad yet intimate portrait of what life was like at sea during a time of discovery. This rare collection sheds a glorious light onto these accounts of seaward adventure. From why eating rats is necessary and how to powder your hair in France to how to truly face fear and distress during a terrifying sea passage, this collection is rich in travellers' experiences. A Book of Voyages is a unique opportunity to not only accompany an adored nautical author as he digs up one gripping historical treasure after another, but to understand how he was inspired to write the Aubrey Maturin series for which he is so famous.

John Moore was a Scottish physician who travelled extensively and wrote immensely popular accounts of these, which brought him international fame. Despite this, his travel writings have not been available since 1820. This collection will be the first in almost two centuries to present his 'Travel Writings' to historians and literary scholars.

Gothic tourism is a growing phenomenon and a medium through which Gothic fictions and folkloric tales are re-imagined and generated. This book examines the complex relationship between contemporary English Gothic attractions and storytelling, uncovering how works of Gothic fiction can both inspire Gothic tourism and emerge from the spaces of Gothic tourism, contending that Gothic tourist attractions are multi-layered storytelling experiences. Contributing to the study of literature and place, Gothic Literary Travel and Tourism draws together the study of literary Gothic tourism and spatial philosophy, offering interdisciplinary analysis into the interface between Gothic narrative(s) and the spaces in which the tourist navigates. The storytelling practices taking place in Gothic caves, theme parks, ghost tours and rural walks serve to reflect contemporary fears and anxieties. This book situates the act of touring a Gothic site as a process of literary and social discovery.