This book features a young explorer caught in the torments of civil war. This volume is the first-ever English translation of the memoirs of Karl Heller, a twenty-year-old aspiring Austrian botanist who traveled to Mexico in 1845 to collect specimens. He passed through the Caribbean, lived for a time in the mountains of Veracruz, and journeyed to Mexico City through the cities of Puebla and Cholula. After a brief residence in the capital, Heller moved westward to examine the volcanoes and silver mines near Toluca. When the United States invaded Mexico in 1846-47 conditions became chaotic, and the enterprising botanist was forced to flee to Yucatan. Heller lived in the port city of Campeche, but visited Merida, the ruins of Uxmal, and the remote southern area of the Champoton River. From there Heller, traveling by canoe, journeyed through southern Tabasco and northern Chiapas and finally returned to Vienna through Cuba and the United States bringing back thousands of samples of Mexican plants and animals. Heller's account is one of the few documents we have from travelers who visited Mexico in this period, and it is particularly useful in describing conditions outside the capital of Mexico City. In 1853, Heller published his German-language account as ""Reisen in Mexiko"", but the work has remained virtually unknown to English or Spanish readers. This edition now provides a complete, annotated, and highly readable translation.

An adventure story from the wilds of early America, "The Land between the Rivers" recreates the journeys of the English botanist Thomas Nuttall, one of American history's most well-traveled scientists.
During the early nineteenth century, Nuttall explored the waters, valleys, plains, and mountains of the Great Lakes, Ohio River, Mississippi River, as well as the Missouri, Arkansas, Red, and Canadian river valleys of the former Louisiana Territory.
In this fascinating account of Nuttall's travels through the wilderness of the middle west, author Russell Lawson-using Nuttall's own journal-captures the sense of excitement of the early wanderer. As much a delight for the mind as the senses, The Land between the Rivers details the unremitting weather and rugged geography of uncharted lands within the Louisiana Territory. A sense of discovery pervades the narrative as Nuttall's odyssey builds to its climax in the prairie wilderness of what is now Oklahoma. Sickened by "ague"-in his case, malaria-Nuttall at times was barely able to go on; yet he continued to search for and catalog plants and animals.
"The Land between the Rivers" expands our knowledge of the work of one of the country's earliest botanists. We also learn a great deal about the early explorers, the inhabitants of the unsettled land, and about the land and culture of the times.

Reverend Antun Rabbat, a respected Jesuit scholar of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, discovered these extraordinary writings in a Jacobite diocese in Aleppo, Syria. Rabbat immediately transcribed into Arabic those portions relating to the remarkable experiences of Reverend Elias-al-Musili, a priest of the Chaldean Church, the first person ever to come to the Americas from Baghdad. Surrounded by a world seemingly filled with exotic miracles, al-Musili shares his perceptions of native peoples, their customs, beliefs, and treatment by Spanish conquistadors. Because of the uniqueness and significance of his journey, al-Musili was supported by the pope himself and authorized by the queen regent of Spain. He provides insightful descriptions of high-level officials and clerics in the New World. And he tells of uncommon visits to royalty in Catholic Europe prior to embarking on a voyage that would turn into a twelve-year adventure (1668-1680). Also featured are rare notes culled from a manuscript in a monastery of the Chaldean Christian rite in Baghdad. Aesthetically appealing and historically important, this unique account remains an invaluable document for scholars of early modern history and of the church in Latin America.

Since the time of Columbus, explorers dreamed of a water passage across the North American continent. President Thomas Jefferson shared this dream. He conceived the Corps of Discovery to travel up the Missouri River to the Rocky Mountains and westward along possible river routes to the Pacific Ocean. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led this expedition of 1804-6. Along the way they filled hundreds of notebook pages with observations of the geography, Indian tribes, and natural history of the trans-Mississippi West.

This set of the celebrated Nebraska edition features the seven core volumes--those written by Lewis and Clark--and incorporates a wide range of new scholarship dealing with all aspects of the expedition, including geography, Indian languages, plants, and animals, in order to recreate the expedition within its historical context.

Worlds of Knowledge in Women's Travel Writing rediscovers the works of a wide range of authors from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. A stowaway on a voyage circumnavigating the globe; a nineteenth-century visitor to schools in Japan; an Indian activist undertaking a pilgrimage to Iraq-these are some of the women whose experiences come to life in this volume. Worlds of Knowledge explores travel writing as a genre for communicating information about other cultures and for testing assumptions about the nature and extent of women's expertise. The book challenges the frequent focus in travel studies on English-language texts by exploring works in French and Urdu as well as English and focusing on journeys to France, Spain, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, India, Ethiopia, Japan, Australia, and the Falkland Islands. Written by experts in a wide range of fields, this interdisciplinary volume sheds new light on the range, innovation, and erudition of travel narratives by women.

INTRODUCED BY FIONA MOZLEY, Booker-shortlisted author of Elmet WITH EXCERPTS FROM ALL THE ROADS ARE OPEN BY ANNEMARIE SCHWARZENBACH 'We were both travellers - she always running away from an emotional crisis (not seeing that she was already wishing for the next), I always seeking far afield the secret of harmonious living, or filling up time by courting risk, caught by the clean sharp "taste" it gives to life.' In 1939, adventurer and writer Ella Maillart set off on an epic drive from Geneva to Kabul, accompanied by journalist and photographer Annemarie Schwarzenbach, who later became an antifascist and lesbian icon. The two women travelled partly to escape the coming war in Europe, embarking on a daring, and often dangerous, journey through regions where European women were a rarity. But Schwarzenbach was also fighting a losing battle with morphine addiction, and the women's close but often troubled relationship takes centre stage in the narrative as the journey progresses through Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan. Encountering breathtaking landscapes, ancient ruins and nomadic peoples, The Cruel Way is a gripping, lyrical and deeply empathetic portrait of places, people and friendship. Brought together for the first time with excerpts from All the Roads are Open, Annemarie Schwarzenbach's parallel account of the journey.

Johann Georg von Hahn - a nineteenth-century Austrian diplomat and explorer - is generally considered to be the founder of Albanian Studies as a scholarly discipline. It was he who first studied the Balkan country and its people, and who brought them to the attention of the academic world. Despite this acclaim, his work has not been widely available in English until now. In this volume, Robert Elsie has translated Hahn's most important works relating to his travels and studies in Albania during the mid-nineteenth century. Hahn's interests were broad, but he was especially interested in the tribes of Albania and Kosovo and made several ethnographic studies of the cultures and traditions of the tribes he encountered on his travels - including the Kelmendi, Hoti and Kastrati tribes. This volume will be invaluable readers for scholars of Balkan history and anthropology.

Lose yourself in the thrilling political intrigue and tangled love affairs of wartime Egypt: Durrell's epic modern classic, introduced by William Boyd (bestselling author of Any Human Heart and Restless). 'A master at creating and handling tension ... I was fascinated from the start.' Wilbur Smith David Mountolive, a young English diplomat, has been obsessed with Egypt ever since a youthful love affair. Returning to Alexandria as British Ambassador just before World War Two, he unravels an intricate political and religious conspiracy - one that connects a web of wildly different characters, including an exiled schoolteacher and glamorous Egyptian couple. Mountolive gradually exposes the sinister underbelly of these tangled relationships, their deceptions and betrayals mirroring the explosive turmoil of the modern Middle East - and the result is Durrell's most cinematic masterpiece. 'Astonishing ... A work of splendid craft and troubling veracity.' New York Times Book Review 'A masterpiece ... Don't be fooled by the richness of the prose, the depth of the passions ... Wicked and funny.' Guardian 'Dazzlingly exuberant in style and vision, reckless in ambition, wonderfully prolific in invention ... Superb.' Observer VOLUME THREE OF LAWRENCE DURRELL'S ALEXANDRIA QUARTET

Lose yourself in the thrilling political intrigue and tangled love affairs of wartime Egypt: Durrell's epic modern classic, introduced by Alaa Al Aswany (bestselling author of The Yacoubian Building). Every interpretation of reality is based upon a unique position ... As the threat of world war looms over the city of Alexandria, an exiled Anglo-Irish schoolteacher unravels his erotic obsession with two women: Melissa, a fragile dancer, and Justine, a glamorous married Egyptian woman. Through conversations with Balthazar, a doctor and mystic, these intricate love affairs are cast in an ominous, sinister new light, as his private fixations become entangled with a mysterious murder plot ... One of the twentieth century's greatest masterpieces, rich in political and sexual intrigue, Lawrence Durrell's 'investigation of modern love' in the Alexandria Quartet set the world alight. Published in 1958, a year after the sensational Justine, the kaleidoscopic Balthazar burns just as brightly today. 'Legendary ... Casts a spell ... A fine storyteller. Reader, watch out!' Jan Morris, Guardian 'A brave and brazen work ... Lush and grandiose.' Independent 'One of the very best novelists of our time ... [such] beauty.' New York Times Book Review VOLUME TWO OF LAWRENCE DURRELL'S ALEXANDRIA QUARTET

Britain in the early eighteenth century: an introduction that is both informative and imaginative, reliable and entertaining. To the tradition of travel writing Daniel Defoe brings a lifetime's experience as a businessman, soldier, economic journalist and spy, and his Tour (1724-6) is an invaluable source of social and economic history. But this book is far more than a beautifully written guide to Britain just before the industrial revolution, for Defoe possessed a wild, inventive streak that endows his work with astonishing energy and tension, and the Tour is his deeply imaginative response to a brave new economic world. By employing his skills as a chronicler, a polemicist and a creative writer keenly sensitive to the depredations of time, Defoe more than achieves his aim of rendering 'the present state' of Britain.

'We shall therefore confine our walk to Central London where people meet on business during the day, and to West London where they meet for pleasure at night. If you will walk about the first City in the British Empire arm in arm with Merriman-Labor, you are sure to see Britons in merriment and at labour, by night and by day, in West and Central London.' In Britons Through Negro Spectacles Merriman-Labor takes us on a joyous, intoxicating tour of London at the turn of the 20th century. Slyly subverting the colonial gaze usually placed on Africa, he introduces us to the citizens, culture and customs of Britain with a mischievous glint in his eye. This incredible work of social commentary feels a century ahead of its time, and provides unique insights into the intersection between empire, race and community at this important moment in history. Selected by Booker Prize-winning author Bernardine Evaristo, this series rediscovers and celebrates pioneering books depicting black Britain that remap the nation.

The life of Colonel Fawcett is now the subject of the major motion picture The Lost City of Z. The disappearance of Colonel Fawcett in the Matto Grosso remains one of the great unsolved mysteries. In 1925, Fawcett was convinced that he had discovered the location of a lost city; he had set out with two companions, one of whom was his eldest son, to destination 'Z', never to be heard of again. His younger son, Brian Fawcett, has compiled this book from letters and records left by his father, whose last written words to his wife were: 'You need have no fear of any failure . . .' This is the thrilling and mysterious account of Fawcett's ten years of travels in deadly jungles and forests in search of a secret city.

Poems for Travellers transports the reader to lands far and near in the company of some of our greatest poets such as Walt Whitman, John Keats and Christina Rossetti.

Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library, a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold-foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover.

As internationally acclaimed author Paul Theroux writes in his introduction, ‘Here is a collection of travel poetry composed by real travellers, weekending tourists, feverish fantasists, bluffers, dreamers, brave adventurers and resolute stay-at-homes. It succeeds in what poetry does best – inspires and consoles, reminds us of who we are, where we’ve been, and where we might want to go next.’

'You may rely upon one thing - I'll never engage in creating kings again; it's too great a strain.' Gertrude Bell - traveller, scholar, archaeologist, spy - was one of the most powerful figures in the Middle East in the 20th century. With T.E. Lawrence, she was a significant force behind the Arab Revolt and was responsible for creating the boundaries of the modern state of Iraq, as well as installing the Hashemite dynasty, with Faisal I as king, in Iraq and Transjordan. Her knowledge of the Arab world was forged through decades of travel and the relationships she built across Arabia with tribal leaders and kings, who referred to her as Umm al Mu'mineen, or Mother of the Faithful. In the winter of 1906, she undertook an often-dangerous journey through Greater Syria - Damascus, Jerusalem, Beirut, Antioch and Alexandretta - and her portrait of the landscapes, people and customs of a part of the world that very few had explored at the time is now a classic of travel writing. Bell's Syria illuminates a region that continues to preoccupy us today as well as portraying the unique life of a remarkable, still-controversial and ultimately tragic woman.

This work examines travellers' accounts of their journeys to Cyrenaica, focusing in the main on an analysis of these accounts within the context of their significance to topographic surveys of the region. The dates given in the title symbolically mark their beginning and end. The starting date (1706) is that of the first journey across Cyrenaica that led to the writing of the first account extensive enough to be the subject of detailed analysis. The end date (1911) marks the beginning of the Italian occupation of Libya, when responsibility for archaeology was entrusted to the greatest Italian specialists of the period. Travelogues were replaced by scholarly studies featuring both well-known and newly discovered sites, while amateur descriptions and drawings were replaced by professional analysis and documentation. The main protagonists of the book are people who travelled to Cyrenaica or stayed there for some time, people of a variety of ages and sorts: physicians and an engineer, priests, soldiers and diplomats, artists and adventurers, scholars and archaeologists. They differed considerably in their education, personalities, itineraries and objectives of their journeys, their wealth and personal circumstances. What they did have in common was great curiosity and courage, love of adventure and the ability to survive in harsh and dangerous conditions - compensated for by unusual discoveries - and, finally, an interest in ancient ruins, which for the purpose of this book is what makes their accounts valuable.

Enchanted by the landscape and people of Spain, Maugham had long resolved to write a picaresque novel about the country. Instead, he wrote a living commentary assessing a great people in their greatest hour. DON FERNANDO, considered by Graham Greene to be Maugham's best work, is a paean to Spain's golden age of enormous creative energy. Beginning with the vivid tale of Loyola's life and conversion, it discusses the writings of St Teresa and the painting of El Greco, and comment with sagacity and wit on such illustrious figures as Cervantes, Luis de Lyon, Lope de Vega, Velasquez and the creator of Don Juan. DON FERNANDO is full of happy surprises, curious facts and stimulating opinions that reflect Maugham's lifelong love and admiration for Spanish culture and civilisation.

A peasant in peaked hat and blue shirt, with trousers rolled up high above his bare knees, crossed the road and silently examined the tricycle. "You have a good horse," he then said; "it eats nothing." -from An Italian Pilgrimage The 1880s was an exhilarating time for cycling pioneers like Elizabeth and her husband Joseph. As boneshakers and high-wheelers evolved into tandem tricycles and the safety bike, cycling grew from child's play and extreme sport into a leisurely and, importantly, literary mode of transportation. The illustrated travel memoirs of "those Pennells" were-and still are-highly entertaining. They helped usher in the new age of leisure touring, while playfully hearkening back to famous literary journeys. In this new edition, Dave Buchanan provides rich cultural contexts surrounding the Pennells' first two adventures. These long out-of-print travel memoirs will delight avid cyclists as well as scholars of travel literature, cycling history, women's writing, Victorian literature, and illustration.

Johann Georg von Hahn - a nineteenth-century Austrian diplomat and explorer - is generally considered to be the founder of Albanian Studies as a scholarly discipline. It was he who first studied the Balkan country and its people, and who brought them to the attention of the academic world. Despite this acclaim, his work has not been widely available in English until now. In this volume, Robert Elsie has translated Hahn's most important works relating to his travels and studies in Albania during the mid-nineteenth century. Hahn's interests were broad, but he was especially interested in the tribes of Albania and Kosovo and made several ethnographic studies of the cultures and traditions of the tribes he encountered on his travels - including the Kelmendi, Hoti and Kastrati tribes. This volume will be invaluable readers for scholars of Balkan history and anthropology.

This little-known gem by the doyenne of women travellers in the Far East describes a journey on horseback through the Himalayas and into Tibet, where she spent four months. Taking to the Tibetans whom she found '"the pleasantest of people," Bird's is a delightful account of a land of beauty and mystery, encircled by high mountains of vermilion and purple. Among the most striking passages are those that describe the religion of Tibet, which permeated the very atmosphere with a singular sense of the strange and otherworldly. Bird visited palaces, temples and monasteries and her descriptions of the ceremonies, decorations, costumes, and music capture a world that is now lost to us.

The classic travel narrative of a Don Quixote-of-the-seas – the first man to circumnavigate the world singlehandedly.

Joshua Slocum’s autobiographical account of his solo trip around the world is one of the most remarkable – and entertaining – travel narratives of all time. Setting off alone from Boston aboard the thirty-six-foot wooden sloop Spray in April 1895, Captain Slocum went on to join the ranks of the world’s great circumnavigators – Magellan, Drake, and Cook. But by circling the globe without crew or consorts, Slocum would outdo them all: his three-year solo voyage of more than 46,000 miles remains unmatched in maritime history for its courage, skill, and determination.

Sailing Alone around the World recounts Slocum’s wonderful adventures: hair-raising encounters with pirates off Gibraltar and savage Indians in Tierra del Fuego; raging tempests and treacherous coral reefs; flying fish for breakfast in the Pacific; and a hilarious visit with fellow explorer Henry Stanley in South Africa. A century later, Slocum’s incomparable book endures as one of the greatest narratives of adventure ever written.

In June 1862 Fyodor Dostoevsky left Petersburg on his first excursion to Western Europe. Ostensibly making the trip to consult Western specialists about his epilepsy, Dostoevsky also wished to see firsthand the source of the Western ideas he believed were corrupting Russia. Over the course of his journey he visited a number of major cities, including Berlin, Paris, London, Florence, Milan, and Vienna. He recorded his impressions of everything he saw, and published them as "Winter Notes on Summer Impressions" in the February 1863 issue of Vremya (Time), the periodical he edited.

The Innocents Abroad is one of the most prominent and influential travel books ever written about Europe and the Holy Land. In it, the collision of the American “New Barbarians” and the European “Old World” provides much comic fodder for Mark Twain—and a remarkably perceptive lens on the human condition. Gleefully skewering the ethos of American tourism in Europe, Twain’s lively satire ultimately reveals just what it is that defines cultural identity. As Twain himself points out, “Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” And Jane Jacobs observes in her Introduction, “If the reader is American, he may also find himself on a tour of his own psyche.”

Elizabeth Bowen's account of a time spent in Rome between February and Easter is no ordinary guidebook but an evocation of a city - its hisotry, its architecture and, above all, its atmosphere. She describes the famous classical sites, conjuring from the ruins visions of former inhabitants and their often bloody activities. She speculates about the immense noise of ancient Rome, the problems caused by the Romans' dining posture, and the Roman temperament, which blended 'constructive will with supine fatalism'. She envies the Vestal Virgins and admires the Empress Livia, who survived a barren marriage.

She evokes the city's moods - by day, when it is characterized by golden sunlight, and at night, when the blaze of the moon 'annihilates history, turning everything into a get together spectacle for Tonight.