In 1960, when he was almost sixty years old, John Steinbeck set out to rediscover his native land. He felt that he might have lost touch with its sights, sounds and the essence of its people.

Accompanied only by his dog, Charley, he travelled all across the United States in a pick-up truck. His journey took him through almost forty states, and he saw things that made him proud, angry, sympathetic and elated.

All that he saw and experienced is described with remarkable honesty and insight.

Fanny Parkes, who lived in India between 1822 and 1846, was the ideal travel writer - courageous, indefatigably curious and determinedly independent. Her delightful journal traces her journey from prim memsahib, married to a minor civil servant of the Raj, to eccentric, sitar-playing Indophile, fluent in Urdu, critical of British rule and passionate in her appreciation of Indian culture. Fanny is fascinated by everything, from the trial of the thugs and the efficacy of opium on headaches to the adorning of a Hindu bride. To read her is to get as close as one can to a true picture of early colonial India - the sacred and the profane, the violent and the beautiful, the straight-laced sahibs and the more eccentric "White Mughals" who fell in love with India and did their best, like Fanny, to build bridges across cultures.

The small island archipelago of St Kilda, which rises majestically from the stormy waters of the North Atlantic, has a magic and allure which is both enduring and inexplicable. For centuries, St Kilda's remoteness (it lies sixty miles west of the Scottish Hebrides), together with the way of life of its inhabitants, has attracted huge attention from outsiders, who have been fascinated by this small community literally clinging to the edge of the world. Although St Kildans were always few in number (the population was under 100 when Hirta, the only inhabited island, was evacuated in 1930), their society was extraordinarily well developed - they famously had their own daily 'parliament', at which the men of the island would meet and discuss the tasks of the day. This remains a work of vital importance for the understanding of this fascinating island society.

Following his election to Parliament, George Nathaniel Curzon (1859-1925) embarked on extensive travels and research in Asia, spending several months in Persia in 1889-90. Later viceroy of India, Curzon believed that growing Russian influence in Asia threatened Britain's interests, and that Persia was an important buffer state. Highly regarded upon publication in 1892, this illustrated two-volume work is a mix of history, geography, travel narrative, and social and political analysis. Intended to educate readers at home as to Persia's strategic significance, the work reflects its author's staunch support for British imperialism. Volume 1 describes Curzon's journey to Tehran, offering observations on the situation in the provinces which bordered Russian-controlled territory. Curzon then gives an overview of Persian institutions, including the monarchy, government, and the army. His Problems of the Far East (1894) is also reissued in this series.

This book revisits the trajectory of one section of Patrick Leigh Fermor’s famous pedestrian excursion from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople. This S.O.E. officer walked into Hungary as a youth of 19 at Easter of 1934 and left Transylvania in August. “A cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond and Graham Greene” as the New York Times obituary put it in 2011, this intrepid traveller published his experiences half a century later. Between the Woods and the Water covers the part of the epic journey on foot from the middle Danube to the Iron Gates. It has been a bestseller since it was first published in 1986. O’Sullivan reveals the identity of the interesting characters in the travelogue, interviewing several of their descendants and meticulously recreating Leigh Fermor’s time spent among the Hungarian nobility. Leigh Fermor’s recollections of his 1934 contacts are at once a proof of a lifelong attraction for the aristocracy, and a confirmation of his passionate love of history and understanding of the region. Rich with photos and other rare documents on places and persons both from the 1930s and today, the book offers a compelling social and political history of the period and the area. Described by Professor Norman Stone as “a major work of Hungarian social archaeology,” this book provides a portrait of Hungary and Transylvania on the brink of momentous change.

The Scottish doctor Henry Faulds (1843-1930) is best remembered for his role in the history of fingerprinting. His strong religious faith had first led him to missionary work in India and then, from 1874, in Japan. He worked there as a surgeon in the mission hospital at Tsukiji, near Tokyo, where he also established a medical school and a school for the blind. It was his discovery of the impressions of thumbprints on ancient Japanese pottery which led to his development of a fingerprinting system and his championing of it as a forensic tool. The present work, part-travelogue, part-journal, was first published in 1885. It remains an engaging account of Japanese life, customs, geography and natural history, interwoven with discussions of topics such as education, language, and the future of the country. There are characterful line drawings throughout. Faulds' Dactylography (1912) is also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection.

Originally published in 1919, this book contains extracts from diaries kept by Arthur Everett Shipley, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, on a trip to the United States from September to December of 1918 as part of the British University Mission. The text is written in a vivid and readable style, preserving Shipley's recollections of touring America immediately before and after the end of World War One. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Anglo-American relations.

The 'memsahibs' of the British Raj in India are well-known figures today, frequently depicted in fiction, TV and film. In recent years, they have also become the focus of extensive scholarship. Less familiar to both academics and the general public, however, are the eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century precursors to the memsahibs of the Victorian and Edwardian era. Yet British women also visited and resided in India in this earlier period, witnessing first-hand the tumultuous, expansionist decades in which the East India Company established British control over the subcontinent. Some of these travellers produced highly regarded accounts of their experiences, thereby inaugurating a rich tradition of women's travel writing about India. In the process, they not only reported events and developments in the subcontinent, they also contributed to them, helping to shape opinion and policy on issues such as colonial rule, religion, and social reform. This new set in the Chawton House Library Women's Travel Writing series assembles seven of these accounts, six by British authors (Jemima Kindersley, Maria Graham, Eliza Fay, Ann Deane, Julia Maitland and Mary Sherwood) and one by an American (Harriet Newell). Their narratives - here reproduced for the first time in reset scholarly editions - were published between 1777 and 1854, and recount journeys undertaken in India, or periods of residence there, between the 1760s and the 1830s. Collectively they showcase the range of women's interests and activities in India, and also the variety of narrative forms, voices and personae available to them as travel writers. Some stand squarely in the tradition of Enlightenment ethnography; others show the growing influence of Evangelical beliefs. But all disrupt any lingering stereotypes about women's passivity, reticence and lack of public agency in this period, when colonial women were not yet as sequestered and debarred from cross-cultural contact as they would later be during the Raj. Their narratives are consequently a useful resource to students and researchers across multiple fields and disciplines, including women's writing, travel writing, colonial and postcolonial studies, the history of women's educational and missionary work, and Romantic-era and nineteenth-century literature. This final volume reproduces a text by Mary Sherwood, called The Life of Mrs Sherwood (1854).

Originally published in 1923, this book presents the complete text of James Boswell's 1768 work, The Journal of a Tour to Corsica. An editorial introduction is also included. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Corsica, travel writing and the works of Boswell.

Originally published in 1933, this book presents an English translation of the French aristocrat Francois de La Rochefoucauld's travel memoir, Melanges sur l'Angleterre. The text provides a detailed account of English manners and customs, together with a record of two journeys through Suffolk and Norfolk undertaken by La Rochefoucauld during 1784. An editorial introduction, comprehensive textual notes and illustrative figures are also included. This is a highly readable book that will be of value to anyone with an interest in travel writing and the history of East Anglia.

The traveller and archaeologist Sir Charles Fellows (1799-1860) made several trips through Asia Minor. This work is an account of the first of these, recording his careful observations of the lands he travelled through. On this trip, he found ancient cities which were unknown to Europeans at that time, including Xanthos, the capital of ancient Lycia, dating from the fifth century BCE. Fellows' narrative brings the journey to life with vivid descriptions of the people and places he encountered, and detailed sketches of notable antiquities and inscriptions. First published in 1839, this work generated significant interest, fuelling the British Museum's eagerness to acquire antiquities from the region. Fellows was later knighted for his role in these acquisitions, though controversy surrounds their removal. Two of his later works, An Account of Discoveries in Lycia (1841) and The Xanthian Marbles (1843), are also reissued in this series.

In the long and often disastrous history of British entanglement in Afghanistan, the name of Alexander Burnes (1805 41) deserves to be remembered. Aged sixteen, he went to India to take up a post in the army, and speedily learned both Hindustani and Persian. His skills led him to political work, and he himself proposed a covert expedition to Bukhara, to survey the country and to observe the expansionist activities of the Russians in central Asia. (Burnes' 1834 account of this journey is also reissued in this series.) In 1836, he was sent to Kabul, and became involved in the British plan to replace Dost Muhammad Khan with Shah Shuja (which he personally thought a mistake). The British became a focus of increasing local discontent, and in November 1841 Burnes was murdered in Kabul by a mob. This account of his stay in the city was published posthumously in 1842."

Peter Goullart spent nine years in the all-but-forgotten Nakhi Kingdom of south west China. He had a job entirely suited to his inquiring, gossipy temperament: to get to know the local traders, merchants, inn-keepers and artisans to decide which to back with a loan from the cooperative movement. A Russian by birth, due to his extraordinary skill in language and dialects, Goullart made himself totally at home in Likiang, which had been ruled by Mandarin officials descended from ancient dynasties, and was visited by caravans of Tibetan and Burmese travelling merchants, and such mysterious local highland peoples as the Lobos. In his company we get to hear about the love affairs and social rivalries of his neighbours, to attend magnificent banquets, meet ancient dowagers and handsome warriors as well as to catch the sound of the swiftly running mountain streams, the coarse ribaldry of the market ladies and the happy laughter emerging from the wine shops. Through him we are able to travel back to this complex society, which believed simultaneously and sincerely in Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, in addition to their ancient Animism and Shamanism.

John Bell (1691 1780) trained as a physician, but preferred a life of travel and diplomacy. He entered the service of Tsar Peter the Great of Russia, and had already taken part (as the expedition's doctor) in a government mission to Persia in 1715 18 when he was asked to join a further embassy to China. This two-volume work, published in 1763, describes both these journeys. The first part of Volume 1 contains an account of the Persian expedition, and the second a narrative of the journey across Siberia to the walls of Beijing. It includes fascinating anecdotes of the peoples encountered, and their environment, beliefs and customs, including a female Siberian shaman, the pet musk deer of an exiled Swedish general, and the interdependence of marmots and rhubarb (at this time a valuable medicinal drug). This is a delightful account of an area then hardly known in the west."

William Wells Brown (1814? 84) was uncertain of his own birthday because he was born a slave, near Lexington, Kentucky. He managed to escape to Ohio, a free state, in 1834. Obtaining work on steamboats, he assisted many other slaves to escape across Lake Erie to Canada. In 1849, having achieved prominence in the American anti-slavery movement, he left for Europe, both to lecture against slavery and also to gain an education for his daughters. He stayed in Europe until 1854, since the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 had made it possible that he could be taken back into slavery if he returned. Meanwhile, he had begun to write both fiction and non-fiction, and this account of his travels in Europe, prefaced by a short biography, was published in 1852. Brown was able to return to the United States in 1854, when British friends paid for his freedom."

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to ensure edition identification: ++++ Narrative Of A Residence In Koordistan, And On The Site Of Ancient Nineveh: With Journal Of A Visit To Shirauz And Persepolis, Volume 1; Narrative Of A Residence In Koordistan, And On The Site Of Ancient Nineveh: With Journal Of A Visit To Shirauz And Persepolis; Claudius James Rich Claudius James Rich J. Duncan, 1836 Middle East

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to ensure edition identification: ++++ Narrative Of A Residence In Koordistan, And On The Site Of Ancient Nineveh: With Journal Of A Visit To Shirauz And Persepolis, Volume 1; Narrative Of A Residence In Koordistan, And On The Site Of Ancient Nineveh: With Journal Of A Visit To Shirauz And Persepolis; Claudius James Rich Claudius James Rich J. Duncan, 1836 Middle East

John Cam Hobhouse, later Lord Broughton (1786 1869), became a friend of Byron when they were at Cambridge, and was frequently his travelling companion. He first published an account of their journey to Albania and Greece in 1814, and reissued this updated and corrected two-volume version in 1855, after his retirement from public life. (His memoirs are also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection.) In September 1809 Byron and Hobhouse were in Malta, and took the opportunity of a passing ship to go to Preveza in Epirus, making their way to the court of Ali Pasha, the 'tyrant of Ioannina'. Volume 1 continues the account of travels through Greece to Athens, and ends with a review of the modern Greek language and its emerging literature. During their journey, Byron was writing Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: on its publication in 1812, as he said, 'I awoke one morning and found myself famous'."

John Cam Hobhouse, later Lord Broughton (1786 1869), became a friend of Byron when they were at Cambridge, and was frequently his travelling companion. He first published an account of their journey to Albania and Greece in 1814, and reissued this updated and corrected two-volume version in 1855, after his retirement from public life. (His memoirs are also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection.) In September 1809 Byron and Hobhouse were in Malta, and took the opportunity of a passing ship to go to Preveza in Epirus, making their way to the court of Ali Pasha, the 'tyrant of Ioannina'. Volume 2 takes the travellers from Smyrna in Asia Minor and up the coast to Istanbul, where they had an audience with Sultan Mahmud II. During their journey, Byron was writing Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: on its publication in 1812, as he said, 'I awoke one morning and found myself famous'."

Aged sixteen, Alexander Burnes (1805 41) took up a post in the Bombay army, and speedily learned both Hindustani and Persian. His skills led him to political work, and he himself proposed a covert expedition to Bukhara, to survey the country, but also to observe the expansionist activities of the Russians in central Asia. In 1832, he set off, with an army doctor, and two Indians as surveyor and secretary. They travelled in local dress and adopted whatever personas a situation required. Having reached Bukhara, they continued overland to the Caspian Sea, and then to Tehran, returning to Bombay by sea in 1833. This three-volume account of his adventures, published in 1834, was an instant bestseller. Volume 1 describes the journey to Bukhara, through Afghanistan into barely explored territory. Burnes continued his diplomatic activities in Afghanistan, but was murdered there by a mob in 1841."

Aged sixteen, Alexander Burnes (1805 41) took up a post in the Bombay army, and speedily learned both Hindustani and Persian. His skills led him to political work, and he himself proposed a covert expedition to Bukhara, to survey the country, but also to observe the expansionist activities of the Russians in central Asia. In 1832, he set off, with an army doctor, and two Indians as surveyor and secretary. They travelled in local dress and adopted whatever personas a situation required. Having reached Bukhara, they continued overland to the Caspian Sea, and then to Tehran, returning to Bombay by sea in 1833. This three-volume account of his adventures, published in 1834, was an instant bestseller. Volume 3 is an account of Burnes' earlier diplomatic mission up the Indus to Lahore in 1831. He continued his diplomatic activities in Afghanistan, but was murdered there by a mob in 1841."

The naturalist and traveller Thomas Pennant (several of whose other works are reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection) published this account of a journey through Scotland and its islands in 1774. Pennant (1726 98) had already written one account of Scotland, in 1771. (He later claimed that by 'shewing that it might be visited with safety' he had created a tourist boom.) His great enthusiasm was for the Hebrides, and more than half of the book describes his voyage around the islands, though he was frustrated by bad weather in getting to Staffa. He transcribes instead an account by Sir Joseph Banks, who had visited in the same year, and in his preface he acknowledges the researches and notes on particular places which had been provided by friends and correspondents. This is a genial account of the history, environment and people of a region still exotic to many Britons."

Edward Blaquiere (1779 1832), an Irishman of Huguenot descent, joined the Royal Navy in 1794 and served, chiefly in the Mediterranean, throughout the Napoleonic wars. In 1820, influenced by Jeremy Bentham, he went on his behalf to Spain to observe the revolution there. On the fall of the liberal regime in Spain in 1823, Blaquiere and his friend John Bowring formed the London Greek Committee to raise money for the Greek war of independence and to lobby the British government for support. (It was under the auspices of the Committee, and recruited by Blaquiere, that Lord Byron made his famous, and fatal, journey to Greece.) After his second visit to Greece, in 1825 Blaquiere published this account of his own travels and of the last days of Lord Byron. His 1824 book on the progress of the Greek revolution is also reissued in this series."

Count Pietro Gamba (1801-27) was the brother of Teresa Guiccioli, Lord Byron's mistress, and a member of the Italian revolutionaries known as the Carbonari. He accompanied Byron on his mission to Greece in 1823, and was described by the poet as 'one of the most amiable, brave, and excellent young men' he had ever encountered, 'with a thirst for knowledge, and a disinterestedness rarely to be met with'. This account of the mission, and of Byron's death and the subsequent controversies over its cause and the disposal of the body, was published in 1825, and dedicated to Byron's close friend, John Cam Hobhouse. It was based on Gamba's diary, 'containing a minute account of all the events of the day ... My only object is to give a simple narrative of what Lord Byron did in Greece'. Gamba died of typhoid in 1827, still working for Greek independence.