Soon after returning from his celebrated journey to Mecca disguised as an Arab, Burton set out on a similarly perilous trip to the city of Harrar in the heart of little-known Somaliland. As related in the preface to his journal: 'He disappeared into the desert for four months...The way was long and weary, adventurous and dangerous, but at last the 'Dreadful City' was sighted, and relying on his good Star and audacity, he walked boldly in...His diplomacy on this occasion, his capacity for passing as an Arab, and his sound Mohammedan Theology, gave him ten days in the city, where he slept every night in danger of his life.' His journey to Harrar, the account of his stay, and the gruelling story of his return across the desert, are here contained in this fine facsimile of the two-volume memorial edition of 1894, complete with maps, plates and diagrams.

"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

Despite piracy, shipwreck, brigandage, and wild beasts, Polo moved in a world of highly organized commerce. This chronicle of his travels through Asia, whether read as fact or fiction, is alive with adventures, geographical information, and descriptions of natural phenomena.

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.

INTRODUCED BY WILLIAM ATKINS, author of The Immeasurable World 'I am merely an eccentric, a dreamer who wishes to live far from the civilized world, as a free nomad.' Isabelle Eberhardt's writing chronicles, in passionate prose, her travels in French colonial North Africa at the turn of the 20th century. Often dressed in male clothing and assuming a man's name, she worked as a war correspondent, married a Muslim non-commissioned officer, converted to Islam and survived an assassination attempt, all before dying in a flash flood at the age of 27. Desert Soul brings together her 'Wanderings' and 'The Daily Journals', detailing the ecstatic highs and the depressive lows of her short but unique and extraordinary life.

In his Book of Marvels and Travels, Sir John Mandeville describes a journey from Europe to Jerusalem and on into Asia, and the many wonderful and monstrous peoples and practices in the East. Written in the fourteenth century, the Book is a captivating blend of fact and fantasy, an extraordinary travel narrative that offers some revealing and unexpected attitudes towards other races and religions. It was immensely popular, and numbered among its readers Chaucer, Columbus, and Thomas More. Here Mandeville tells us about the Sultan in Cairo, the Great Khan in China, and the mythical Christian prince Prester John. There are giants and pygmies, cannibals and Amazons, headless humans and people with a single foot so huge it can shield them from the sun. Forceful and opinionated, the narrator is by turns learned, playful, and moralizing, with an endless curiosity about different cultures.
Anthony Bale provides a lively new translation along with an introduction that considers questions of authorship and origins, the early travel narrative, Crusading and religious difference, fantasy and the European Age of Discovery, and Mandeville's pervasive popularity and influence. The book includes helpful notes on historical context that provide insights into medieval culture and attitudes. There are also three maps, an index of places and a general index, and a note on medieval measurements.
About the Series For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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.

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.

Samuel Johnson and James Boswell spent the autumn of 1773 touring through the Lowlands and Highlands of Scotland as far west as the islands of Skye, Raasay, Coll, Mull, Inchkenneth and Iona. Both kept detailed notes of their impressions, and later published separate accounts of their journey. These works contain some of the finest pieces of travel writing ever produced: they are also magnificent historical documents as well as portraits of two extraordinary men of letters. Together they paint a vivid picture of a society which was still almost unknown to the Europe of the Enlightenment. Entertaining, profound, and marvellously readable, they are a valuable chronicle of a lost age and a fascinating people. For the first time, Ronald Black's edition brings together Johnson's and Boswell's accounts of each of the six stages of the two men's journey - Lowlands, Skye, Coll, Mull and back to the mainland. Illustrated with prints by Thomas Rowlandson, it includes a critical introduction, translations of the Latin texts and brief notes.

‘In England any person fond of natural history enjoys a great advantage … but in these fertile climates, teeming with life, the attractions are so numerous, that he is scarcely able to walk at all’

When the Beagle sailed out of Devonport on 27th December 1831, Charles Darwin was twenty-two and setting off on the voyage of a lifetime. The journal that he kept shows a naturalist making patient observations concerning geology and natural history as well as people, places and events.  Volcanoes in the Galapagos, the Gossamer spider of Patagonia, the Australasian coral reefs and the brilliance of the firefly; all are to be found in these extraordinary writings. The insights made on the five-year voyage were to set in motion the intellectual currents that lead to the most controversial book of the Victorian age: The Origin of Species.

This volume reprints Charles Darwin’s journal in a shortened form. It contains an introduction providing a background to Darwin’s thought and work, as well as notes, maps and appendices and an essay on scientific geology and the Bible by Robert FitzRoy, Darwin’s friend and captain of the Beagle.

Europe has been widely acclaimed as among the finest achievements of 'one of our greatest living writers' (The Times). A personal appreciation, fuelled by five decades of journeying, this is Jan Morris at her best - at once magisterial and particular, whimsical and profound. It is a matchless portrait of a continent.

It is widely believed that people living in the Middle Ages seldom traveled. But, as Medieval Travel and Travelers reveals, many medieval people - and not only Marco Polo - were on the move for a variety of different reasons. Assuming no previous knowledge of medieval civilizations, this volume allows readers to experience the excitement of men and women who ventured into new lands. By addressing cross-cultural interaction, religion, and travel literature, the collection sheds light on how travel shaped the way we perceive the world, while also connecting history to the contemporary era of globalization. Including a mix of complete sources, excerpts, and images, Medieval Travel and Travelers provides readers with opportunities for further reflection on what medieval people expected to find in foreign locales, while sparking curiosity about undiscovered spaces and cultures.

Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915-2011) was a war hero whose exploits in Crete are legendary, and above all he is widely acclaimed as the greatest travel writer of our times, notably for his books about his walk across pre-war Europe, A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water; he was a self-educated polymath, a lover of Greece and the best company in the world.

Artemis Cooper has drawn on years of interviews and conversations with Paddy and his closest friends as well as having complete access to his archives.

Her beautifully crafted biography portrays a man of extraordinary gifts - no one wore their learning so playfully, nor inspired such passionate friendship.

Marco Polo set off on his travels from Venice as a young man in 1271, and returned home in 1295 after spending 24 years away, 17 of them in China. He isone of the few early adventurers whose name nearly everyone knows. His book was one of the best-loved works of the Middle Ages, and has remained popular ever since. At a time when China is again assuming global importance, his account of China under the Mongol emperor Khubilai Khan - the dazzlingly splendid capital in Beijing, the great southern metropolis of Hangzhou - is a classic reminder of the antiquity of Chinese power and civilization. Marco Polo also portrays countries and cities all along the trade route from the Mediterranean to Mongolia. He reminds us that Iraq's present suffering is not unique by relating the story of the attack on Baghdad by Mongol forces in 1258. He conveys the daunting prospect of the deserts of central Asia and the distant charms of Yunnan. And he reminds us of the huge merchant ships dominating China's trade with foreign countries, ships that far outstripped their European counterparts. He even writes about Japan, the first European to do so. His book was often thought of as a book of marvels, but one of its striking features to a contemporary reader is its clarity, realism and tolerance. As this new edition shows, he sometimes exaggerates, but his reputation for making things up is quite unfair, as Colin Thubron makes clear in his introduction. The original manuscript of Marco Polo's book is lost, and in the many later versions names and other details have become so garbled that it has been said that his itineraries are impossible to follow. This new Everyman edition shows this need not be so. It explains clearly all the references in the book, and shows in detail with new maps the routes described from Venice to Beijing, from Beijing to Burma, and from Beijing to south-east China. It also provides an up-to-date history of the book and the controversies surrounding it.

The first new translation in over 400 years of one of the great works of the Renaissance: an African diplomat's guide to Africa. In 1518, al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan, a Moroccan diplomat, was seized by pirates while travelling in the Mediterranean. Brought before Pope Leo X, he was persuaded to convert to Christianity, in the process taking the name Johannes Leo Africanus. Acclaimed in the papal court for his learning, Leo would in time write his masterpiece, The Cosmography and the Geography of Africa. The Cosmography was the first book about Africa, and the first book written by a modern African, to reach print. It would remain central to the European understanding of Africa for over 300 years, with its descriptions of lands, cities and peoples giving a singular vision of the vast continent: its urban bustle and rural desolation, its culture, commerce and warfare, its magical herbs and strange animals. Yet it is not a mere catalogue of the exotic: Leo also invited his readers to acknowledge the similarity and relevance of these lands to the time and place they knew. For this reason, The Cosmography and Geography of Africa remains significant to our understanding not only of Africa, but of the world and how we perceive it.

Meet the drunken Mexicans, the gorgeous girls, the desperate drug-dealer, and the snoring dog... as the author describes his first reading-tour across America. This book is a writer's notebook, intimate travelogue, and a chronicle of experiences both commonplace and extraordinary.

This wonderfully written book tells of the first Herculean expeditions to Antarctica, from astronomer Edmond Halley s 1699 voyage in the "Paramore" to the sealer John Balleny s 1839 excursion in the "Eliza Scott," all in search of land, glory, fur, science, and profit. Life was harsh: crews had poor provisions and inadequate clothing, and scurvy was a constant threat. With unreliable often homemade charts, these intrepid explorers sailed in the stormy waters of the Southern Ocean below the Convergence, that sea frontier marking the boundary between the freezing Antarctic waters and the warmer sub-Antarctic seas. These men were the first to discover and exploit a new continent, which was not the verdant southern island they had imagined but an inhospitable expanse of rock and ice, ringed by pack ice and icebergs: Antarctica."

In this journey of discovery, John Micklewright travels the slow way, on foot, on paths, tracks and byways from the Channel to the Alps - from the coast of Normandy to the flanks of Mont Blanc. The Opening Country is a beautifully written account of his progress through the French countryside, an evocative patchwork of landscape, nature, history, literature, film, and - drawing on his father's diaries that stretch back to the 1930s - of memoir. Always curious, absorbing all around him, ready on a whim to divert from his chosen route as he heads unhurriedly southwards. The natural world unfolds as spring turns to summer with surprises of bird song and butterflies, against a constant background of reminders of the economic and social story of rural France and of wars past. The result is an engrossing record of a classic long-distance walk through Britain's nearest continental neighbour. The Opening Country is a book to fire the imagination - a call to travel slowly, to open eyes and ears, to discover and explore.

In his perfectly crafted haiku poems, Basho described the natural world with great simplicity and delicacy of feeling. When he composed The Narrow Road to the Deep North he was a serious student of Zen Buddhism setting off on a series of travels designed to strip away the trappings of the material world and bring spiritual enlightenment. He wrote of the seasons changing, of the smell of the rain, the brightness of the moon and the beauty of the waterfall, through which he sensed the mysteries of the universe. These travel writings not only chronicle Basho's perilous journeys through Japan, but also capture his vision of eternity in the transient world around him.

Like the ancient colossus that stood over the harbor of Rhodes, Henry Miller's The Colossus of Maroussi stands as a seminal classic in travel literature. It has preceded the footsteps of prominent travel writers such as Pico Iyer and Rolf Potts. The book Miller would later cite as his favorite began with a young woman's seductive description of Greece. Miller headed out with his friend Lawrence Durrell to explore the Grecian countryside: a flock of sheep nearly tramples the two as they lie naked on a beach; the Greek poet Katsmbalis, the "colossus" of Miller's book, stirs every rooster within earshot of the Acropolis with his own loud crowing; cold hard-boiled eggs are warmed in a village's single stove, and they stay in hotels that "have seen better days, but which have an aroma of the past."

The first English translation, presented with pictures and a piece by De Amicis's contemporary Louis Laurent Simonin

As a first-time visitor to London, De Amicis was awestruck by the bustle and magnificence of the Victorian metropolis and wrote a number of sketches in his trademark witty, observational style, which made him one of the bestselling travel writers of his age. Originally conceived as a series of newspaper articles and later published in volume form, "Memories of London" brings back to life all the bygone charm of the capital of the British Empire. De Amicis's impressions are paired here with a piece written by the French writer Louis Laurent Simonin, which leaves the city's opulence and grandeur behind and offers an uncompromising look at the poverty and squalor of its most deprived areas.

The Life and Works of Robert Wood (1717-1771) commemorates the Irish classicist and traveller on the 250th anniversary of his death and provides the general reader with a study that can be regarded as a source book for the fascinating life and career of a much-neglected figure in the realm of Irish eighteenth-century travels and antiquarianism. The book starts by setting the context of eighteenth-century travels to the east and then examines the primary sources emanating from Wood's own eastern voyages, as well as the relevant literary sources available to him before, during, and after his travels. It then provides an extensive and much-needed biographical account of Robert Wood, with particular reference to his Irish and English patrons, before examining the main results of the second tour (1750-1751), namely his three pioneering books: Ruins of Palmyra (1753), Ruins of Balbec (1757), and The Original Genius of Homer (1775). It ends by considering the enormous legacy of Robert Wood, in terms of the popularity of his books; the variety and quality of portraits commissioned by his friends and associates; his contribution to the study of classical literature; his influence on architectural drawing in late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe; and the cultural significance of his work on building design. The text also reflects on the somewhat questionable nature of his works, in terms of the fact that his second voyage of the east, and the entire production of the first two books, were financed by his friend Dawkins, whose wealth derived from a slave plantation in Jamaica.

In the first quarter of the 20th century, China was in turmoil, facing an existential crisis. Chinese politicians and intellectuals looked to the Turkish Republic as a role model. Turkey defeated foreign invading forces and renegotiated unfair treaties, adapted to the modern world, and initiated series of reforms in all walks of life. Chinese travellers chronicled their observations, and included the notes of Shi Zhaoji, the first Chinese ambassador to the US, and Hu Hanmin, an early leader in the Kuomintang.