This enthralling story of survival is the first major narrative of the exploration of North America by Europeans (1528-36). The author of "Castaways" ("Naufragios"), Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, was a fortune-seeking nobleman and the treasurer of an expedition to claim for Spain a vast area that includes today's Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. A shipwreck forced him and a handful of men to make the long westward journey on foot to meet up with Hernan Cortes.
In order to survive, Cabeza de Vaca joined native peoples along the way, learning their languages and practices and serving them as a slave and later as a physician. When after eight years he finally reached the West, he was not recognized by his compatriots.
In his writing Cabeza de Vaca displays great interest in the cultures of the native peoples he encountered on his odyssey. As he forged intimate bonds with some of them, sharing their brutal living conditions and curing their sick, he found himself on a voyage of self-discovery that was to make his reunion with his fellow Spaniards less joyful than expected.
Cabeza de Vaca's gripping narrative is a trove of ethnographic information, with descriptions and interpretations of native cultures that make it a powerful precursor to modern anthropology. Frances M. Lopez-Morillas's translation beautifully captures the sixteenth-century original. Based as it is on Enrique Pupo-Walker's definitive critical edition, it promises to become the authoritative English translation.

The republication of the memoirs of Colonel John McDonell of Scottas (1728-1810) will be welcomed by Highlanders the world over. Neither romantic novel nor learned history can conjure up for us so vividly as this unashamedly prejudiced eyewitness account of the atmosphere of the aftermath of "the '45," the fierce loyalties and bitter hatreds, the high principles and barefaced villainy. We meet the ineffectual Stuart King, the saintly Duke of York, the unspeakable Captain Fergusson and many a minor character, each playing his part in the long drawn out British War of Succession and the death throes of Celtic society. The monograph traces John McDonell's story from his adventurous journey from Scotland to Rome at the age of 12 to his emigration to North America thirty-three years later.

When the famous anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss arrived in Rio de Janeiro, he had one book in his pocket: Jean de Lery's "History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil." Lery had undertaken his fascinating and arduous voyage in 1556, as a youthful member of the first Protestant mission to the New World. Janet Whatley presents the first complete English translation of one of the most vivid early European accounts of life in the New World.

Consequent upon the Berlin West Africa Conference (1884-1885), the Africanische Gesellschaft in Deutschland launched the Niger-Benue expedition to investigate possible riverine communications throughout the Niger-Benue river system. Responsibility for the expedition ultimately fell to Paul Staudinger, a young entomologist with no experience of inner Africa.
This translation of Staudinger's Im Herzen der Haussalander opens up an invaluable source book of interest not only to the historian but to specialists in many disciplines. It deals with every aspect of the life of the Hausa-Fulani people: their history, environment, flora and fauna, culture, economy, and social structure as observed by a patriotic young German scientist of a century ago. The chronological narrative of the journey is followed by a series of appendices, each providing a systematic summary of a particular branch of knowledge.
Foreword by Paul Lovejoy."

This definitive edition of Columbus's account of the voyage presents the most accurate printed version of his journal available to date. Unfortunately both Columbus's original manuscript, presented to Ferdinand and Isabella along with other evidence of his discoveries, and a single complete copy have been lost for centuries. The primary surviving record of the voyage-part quotation, part summary of the complete copy-is a transcription made by Bartolome de las Casas in the 1530s. This new edition of the Las Casas manuscript presents its entire contents-including notes, insertions, and canceled text-more accurately, completely, and graphically than any other Spanish text published so far. In addition, the new translation, which strives for readability and accuracy, appears on pages facing the Spanish, encouraging on-the- spot comparisons of the translation with the original. Study of the work is further facilitated by extensive notes, documenting differences between the editors' transcription and translation and those of other transcribers and translators and summarizing current research and debates on unanswered current research and debates on unanswered questions concerning the voyage. In addition to being the only edition in which Spanish and English are presented side by side, this edition includes the only concordance ever prepared for the Diario. Awaited by scholars, this new edition will help reduce the guesswork that has long plagued the study of Columbus's voyage. It may shed light on a number of issues related to Columbus's navigational methods and the identity of his landing places, issues whose resolution depend, at least in part, on an accurate transcription of the Diario. Containing day-by-day accounts of the voyage and the first sighting of land, of the first encounters with the native populations and the first appraisals of his islands explored, and of a suspenseful return voyage to Spain, the Diario provides a fascinating and useful account to historians, geographers, anthropologists, sailors, students, and anyone else interested in the discovery-or in a very good sea story. Oliver Dunn received the PH.D. degree from Cornell University. He is Professor Emeritus in Purdue University and a longtime student of Spanish and early history of Spanish America. James E. Kelley, Jr., received the M.A. degree from American University. A mathematician and computer and management consultant by vocation, for the past twenty years he has studied the history of European cartography and navigation in late-medieval times. Both are members of the Society for the History of Discoveries and have written extensively on the history of navigation and on Columbus's first voyage, Although they remain unconvinced of its conclusions, both were consultants to the National geographic Society's 1986 effort to establish Samana Cay as the site of Columbus's first landing.

The first edited volume of work by the legendary undercover journalist
Born Elizabeth Jane Cochran, Nellie Bly was one of the first and best female journalists in America and quickly became a national phenomenon in the late 1800s, with a board game based on her adventures and merchandise inspired by the clothes she wore. Bly gained fame for being the first "girl stunt reporter," writing stories that no one at the time thought a woman could or should write, including an expose of patient treatment at an insane asylum and a travelogue from her record-breaking race around the world without a chaperone. This volume, the only printed and edited collection of Bly's writings, includes her best known works--"Ten Days in a Mad-House," "Six Months in Mexico," and "Around the World in Seventy-Two Days"--as well as many lesser known pieces that capture the breadth of her career from her fierce opinion pieces to her remarkable World War I reporting. As 2014 marks the 150th anniversary of Bly's work, this collection celebrates her work, spirit, and vital place in history.

Turkey, Egypt, and Syria: A Travelogue vividly captures the experiences of prominent Indian intellectual and scholar Shibli- Nu'ma-ni- (1857-1914) as he journeyed across the Ottoman Empire and Egypt in 1892. A professor of Arabic and Persian at the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental (MAO) College at Aligarh, Nu'ma-ni- took a six-month leave from teaching to travel to the Ottoman Empire in search of rare printed works and manuscripts to use as sources for a series of biographies on major figures in Islamic history. Along the way, he collected information on schools, curricula, publishers, and newspapers, presenting a unique portrait of imperial culture at a transformative moment in the history of the Middle East. Nu'ma-ni- records sketches and anecdotes that offer rare glimpses of intellectual networks, religious festivals, visual and literary culture, and everyday life in the Ottoman Empire and Egypt. First published in 1894, the travelogue has since become a classic of Urdu travel writing and has been immensely influential in the intellectual and politicalhistory of South Asia. This translation, the first into English, includes contemporary reviews of the travelogue, letters written by the author during his travels, and serialized newspaper reports about the journey, and is deeply enriched for readers and students by the translator's copious multilingual glosses and annotations. Nu'ma-ni- 's chronicle offers unique insight into broader processes of historical change in this part of the world while also providing a rare glimpse of intellectual engagement and exchange across the porous borders of empire.

The critical and biographical introduction tells of Lady Wortley Montagu's travels through Europe to Turkey in 1716, where her husband had been appointed Ambassador. Her lively letters offer insights into the paradoxical freedoms conferred on Muslim women by the veil, the value of experimental work by Turkish doctors on inoculation, and the beauty of Arab poetry and culture.

"...the proverb says that whoever sees the world from the back of an elephant learns the secrets of the jungle and becomes a seer. I had to be content to become a poet." -Lawrence Durrell Best known for his novels and travel writing, Lawrence Durrell defied easy classification within twentieth-century Modernism. His anti-authoritarian tendencies put him at odds with many contemporaries-aesthetically and politically. However, thanks to a compelling recontextualization by editor James Gifford, these thirty-eight previously unpublished and out-of-print essays and letters reveal that Durrell's maturation as an artist was rich, complex, and subtle. Durrell fans will treasure this selection of rare nonfiction, while scholars of Durrell, Modernist literature, anti-authoritarian artists, and the Personalist movement will also appreciate Gifford's fine editorial work. "Gifford's scholarly command of the archives shows-especially his working intimacy with the unpublished archived words of Durrell's editors, publishers, and collaborators. I have no doubt that this collection will serve as a starting point for any number of new critical ventures into the life and writing of Lawrence Durrell." -Charles Sligh, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

The violence, wonder, and nostalgia of voyaging are nowhere more vivid than in the literature of South Seas exploration. "Preserving the Self in the South Seas" charts the sensibilities of the lonely figures that encountered the new and exotic in terra incognita. Jonathan Lamb introduces us to the writings of South Seas explorers, and finds in them unexpected and poignant tales of selves alarmed and transformed.
Lamb contends that European exploration of the South Seas was less confident and mindful than we have assumed. It was, instead, conducted in moods of distraction and infatuation that were hard to make sense of and difficult to narrate, and it prompted reactions among indigenous peoples that were equally passionate and irregular. "Preserving the Self in the South Seas" also examines these common crises of exploration in the context of a metropolitan audience that eagerly consumed narratives of the Pacific while doubting their truth. Lamb considers why these halting and incredible journals were so popular with the reading public, and suggests that they dramatized anxieties and bafflements rankling at the heart of commercial society.

A classic travelogue that brilliantly conjures 1930s Britain. In this series of pen-portraits of England from the 1930s, Victor Canning 'evocatively captures the pattern and colour of English life' (The Bookseller), from Cumbria to Cornwall. Canning's heart-warming and humorous observations of sleepy villages, pastoral scenes and busy industries are a delightful time capsule into life in England during the interwar years. 'What does the word England mean to you? To all of us England means something different, and yet I think there is for every man and woman some little corner which is more England than anywhere else...' ***PRAISE FOR EVERYMAN'S ENGLAND*** 'Wonderful... elegant, humorous, exuberant essays.' Guardian 'Evocatively captures the pattern and colour of English life.' The Bookseller 'Canning finds beauty everywhere, but never sentimentalises, and is consistently honest enough to highlight poverty and social inequality... Canning, at his very best when waxing lyrical about landscapes, offers vivid images of the English countryside...' The Daily Mail

Robert Louis Stevenson was not only a gifted writer, he was also an indefatigable traveller. His thirst for adventure was formed by his boyhood visits to remote Scottish lighthouses, and he spent much of his life fleeing the rigours of cold climates and social orthodoxy. Along the way he canoed through Belgium and France, booked passage to and across America, and finally famously settled in Samoa in the South Seas. The walking trip that Stevenson describes in Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes (1879) was taken when the nascent author was still in his twenties and pining for a lost love. Accompanied by Modestine, the eponymous donkey he hired to carry his camping gear, the journey proved both challenging and charming. The book is infused with all of the qualities that make Stevenson the most popular of writers: humour and humanity, poetry and perspicacity, ebullience and intelligence. 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.

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.

Polar explorer John Ross (1777 1856) sailed with William Edward Parry in 1818 to seek a North-West Passage from Baffin Bay. The attempt was unsuccessful, and Ross was widely blamed for its failure. In 1829 he set out on a privately funded expedition on the steamship Victory, accompanied by his nephew James Clark Ross, to try again, returning to England in late 1833. Using survival techniques learnt from the Inuit he befriended, Ross kept his crew healthy through four icebound winters. While the voyage once again failed to find a North-West Passage, it surveyed the Boothia Peninsula and a large part of King William Land. It was also valuable for its scientific findings. Ross published this two-volume work in 1835. Volume 1 summarises previous Polar exploration before describing the voyage; Volume 2 contains scientific reports, information on the Inuit, and a vocabulary of their language.

Chawton House Library: Women's Travel Writings are multi-volume editions with full texts reproduced in facsimile with new scholarly apparatus. The texts have been carefully selected to illustrate various themes in women's history.

Harry Peckham was educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford, before being called to the Bar and becoming, in time, a King's Counsel, a Commissioner for Bankrupts and Recorder of Chichester. He was also a witty rake, a keen sportsman (he was a member of the committee that drew up the laws of cricket) and a relentless tourist. Harry Peckham's Tour is a collection of letters he wrote in 1769 while travelling through the Netherlands, Belgium and France and contains insights into the society and culture of the places that he visited, including Rotterdam, The Hague, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent, Paris, Rouen and Calais. Perceptive and funny, Harry Peckham's Tour is written in a very engaging style and is a delight to read. This edition contains a new introduction and notes by Martin Brayne and is the only available version of Peckham's text.

In the spring of 1869, John Muir was looking for means of support to fund his explorations of California’s Central Valley region. A ranch owner offered him a job herding sheep in the Sierra Nevada. As he explored the region, he jotted down his keen observations of the scenic countryside, and he eventually became a guide for some of Yosemite’s most famous visitors, including Ralph Waldo Emerson. Muir documented these experiences in The Yosemite, first published in 1912. It is at once a vivid, accurate description of the land and a passionate homage to nature.

This Modern Library Paperback Classic is a facsimile of the 1912 edition and includes the original illustrations.

Domenico was the name taken by a rabbi and doctor from Safed in Palestine on his conversion to Catholicism in 1593. For some ten years, he served as Third Physician to Sultan Murad III. In 1611 he wrote, or more accurately he dictated, his Relatione della gran Citta di Constantinopli. This is not just a topographical description of the city, but also an account of its inhabitants and the regulations governing their lives, of how the Sultan spent his time, of the principles and practice of Islam, and much more. English Text.

A Double Mountain Books' classic reissue, this is a story-book travelogue covering the big ranches of West and South Texas. Williams made many informal excursions to study their history, founders and owners, picking up facts, folklore and range gossip along the way. He documents the fifteen largest ranches in Texas and the ways they adapted to changing conditions in the ranching industry. Photographs and maps illustrate the text. Though it never received wide circulation following its publication in 1954, ""The Big Ranch Country"" has been recognized as a standard work by ranch historians. J.W. Williams wrote often in books and newspapers about West Texas, and his work is still cited by authors and scholars. 'The greatest merits of ""The Big Ranch Country"" are its personal, almost conversational style, and the very fact that it is dated. [M]odern-day realities do not impose themselves on this nostalgic work' - Ty Cashion. 'A valuable addition to the collector of Texana and to the mid-century reader who might have wondered just where the large range properties are and how they got that way' - William M. Pearce, ""Southwestern Historical Quarterly"", April 1956.

This unusual study combines two books in one: the 1794 autobiographical travel narrative of an Indian, Dean Mahomet, recalling his years as camp-follower, servant, and subaltern officer in the East India Company's army (1769 to 1784); and Michael H. Fisher's portrayal of Mahomet's sojourn as an insider/outsider in India, Ireland, and England. Emigrating to Britain and living there for over half a century, Mahomet started what was probably the first Indian restaurant in England and then enjoyed a distinguished career as a practitioner of 'oriental medicine, i.e., therapeutic massage and herbal steam bath, in London and the seaside resort of Brighton. This is a fascinating account of life in late eighteenth-century India - the first book written in English by an Indian - framed by a mini-biography of a remarkably versatile entrepreneur. "Travels" presents an Indian's view of the British conquest of India and conveys the vital role taken by Indians in the colonial process, especially as they negotiated relations with Britons both in the colonial periphery and the imperial metropole. Connoisseurs of unusual travel narratives, historians of England, Ireland, and British India, as well as literary scholars of autobiography and colonial discourse will find much in this book. But it also offers an engaging biography of a resourceful, multidimensional individual.

'The charm of certain vacant grassy spaces, in Italy, overfrowned by masses of brickwork that are honeycombed by the suns of centuries, is something that I hereby renounce once for all the attempt to express; but you may be sure that whenever I mention such a spot enchantment lurks in it.' - Henry James In these essays on travels in Italy written from 1872 to 1909, Henry James explores art and religion, political shifts and cultural revolutions, and the nature of travel itself. James's enthusiastic appreciation of the unparalleled aesthetic allure of Venice, the vitality of Rome, and the noisy, sensuous appeal of Naples is everywhere marked by pervasive regret for the disappearance of the past and by ambivalence concerning the transformation of nineteenth-century Europe. John Auchard's lively introduction and extensive notes illuminate the surprising differences between the historical, political, and artistic Italy of James's travels and the metaphoric Italy that became the setting of some of his best-known works of fiction. This edition includes an appendix of James's book reviews on Italian travel-writing.

After living abroad for 20 years, Henry James returned to his native America and travelled down the East Coast from Boston to Florida. This a journal describing his feelings on the rediscovery of the New York of his childhood, and the growth of modern commercial America. He muses on Thoreau, Hawthorne and Emerson; in Washington, he finds a cityscape devoid of spiritual symbols; in Richmond, thoughts of the civil war haunt him. Published in 1907, this journal also served as a farewell address to the country James would never live in again.

On April 28, 1846, Francis Parkman left Saint Louis on his first expedition west. The Oregon Trail documents his adventures in the wilderness, sheds light on America's westward expansion, and celebrates the American spirit.

Dana’s account of his passage as a common seaman from Boston around Cape Horn to California, and back, is a remarkable portrait of the seagoing life. Bringing to the public’s attention for the first time the plight of the most exploited segment of the American working class, he forever changed readers’ romanticized perceptions of life at sea.