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Books > Sport & Leisure > Travel & holiday > Travel writing > Classic travel writing
'How is the mind agitated and bewildered, at being thus, as it
were, placed on the borders of a new world!' - William Bartram
'Thus you see, dear sister, the manners of mankind do not differ so
widely as our voyage writers would have us believe.' - Mary Wortley
Montagu With widely varied motives - scientific curiosity,
commerce, colonization, diplomacy, exploration, and tourism -
British travellers fanned out to every corner of the world in the
period the Critical Review labelled the 'Age of Peregrination'. The
Empire, already established in the Caribbean and North America, was
expanding in India and Africa and founding new outposts in the
Pacific in the wake of Captain Cook's voyages. In letters,
journals, and books, travellers wrote at first-hand of exotic lands
and beautiful scenery, and encounters with strange peoples and
dangerous wildlife. They conducted philosophical and political
debates in print about slavery and the French Revolution, and their
writing often affords unexpected insights into the writers
themselves. This anthology brings together the best writing from
authors such as Daniel Defoe, Celia Fiennes, Mary Wollstonecraft,
Olaudah Equiano, Mungo Park, and many others, to provide a
comprehensive selection from this emerging literary genre. ABOUT
THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made
available the widest range 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,
helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for
further study, and much more.
Abu Abdalla Ibn Battuta (1304-1354) was one of the greatest
travelers of pre-modern times. He traveled to Black Africa twice.
He reported about the wealthy, multi-cultural trading centers at
the African East coast, such as Mombasa and Kilwa, and the warm
hospitality he experienced in Mogadishu. He also visited the court
of Mansa Musa and neighboring states during its period of
prosperity from mining and the Trans-Saharan trade. He wrote
disapprovingly of sexual integration in families and of hostility
towards the white man. Ibn Battuta's description is a unique
document of the high culture, pride, and independence of Black
African states in the fourteenth century. This book is one of the
most important documents about Black Africa written by a
non-European medieval historian.
The description of his mission to the court of the Shah Tahmasp I
of Persia by the Venetian Michele Membre is one of the most
informative as well as one of the most individual of the few
European accounts of 16th century Persia.
The origins of 'Aladdin' continue to fascinate scholars and readers
of the tales. The story is believed to have first been written in
French, by Antoine Galland, having been told to him in Paris in
1709 by Hanna Diyab - the author of this travel memoir. Written
some five decades after this encounter, 'The Life and Times of
Hanna Diyab' is part autobiography and part storytelling, a
fascinating record of experiences, cultural observations,
international relations, medicine, and hearsay. It traces a journey
across land and sea from the author's home in Aleppo - through
early eighteenth-century Lebanon, Jabal Druze, Cyprus, Egypt,
Libya, Tunis, Livorno, Genoa and Marseille - to Paris in the time
of Louis XIV; and the author's return to Aleppo across the 'lands
of the East', now Turkey. The Foreword explains how this important
translation into English came about and the Introduction provides
background to some of the features of the memoir, including the
Maronite Christian community of the period, the consular system of
the Republics of Venice and Genoa, the role of Ottoman ambassadors,
and of the French merchant, naturalist and traveller, Paul Lucas.
Notes at the end of the book also help the non-specialist reader,
and there are two bibliographies.
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