|
Books > Travel > Travel writing > Classic travel writing
"Inspirational" - The Daily Mail "Sarah Sands has written about
stillness with an eloquence that fizzes with vitality and wit. This
wonderful book charts a journey to some of the most beautiful and
tranquil places on earth, and introduces us to people whose inner
peace is a balm for our troubled times. I loved every page of it."
- Nicholas Hytner Suffering from information overload, unable to
sleep, Sarah Sands, former editor of the BBC's Today programme, has
tried many different strategies to de-stress... only to reject them
because, as she says, all too often they threaten to become an
exercise in self-absorption. Inspired by the ruins of an ancient
Cistercian abbey at the bottom of her Norfolk garden, she begins to
research the lives of the monks who once resided there, and
realises how much we may have to learn from monasticism. Renouncing
the world, monks and nuns have acquired a hidden knowledge of how
to live: they labour, they learn and they acquire 'the interior
silence'. This book is a quest for that hidden knowledge - a
pilgrimage to ten monasteries round the world. From a Coptic desert
community in Egypt to a retreat in the Japanese mountains, we
follow Sands as she identifies the common characteristics of
monastic life and the wisdoms to be learned from them; and as she
discovers, behind the cloistered walls, a clarity of mind and an
unexpected capacity for solitude which enable her, after years of
insomnia, to experience that elusive, dreamless sleep.
Even before the advent of mass tourism, Verona was a popular
destination for travellers, including those undertaking the popular
'Grand Tour' across Europe. In this book, Caroline Webb compares
the experiences of travellers from the era of Shakespeare to the
years following the incorporation of the Veneto into the new
kingdom of Italy in 1866. She considers their reasons for visiting
Verona as well as their experiences and expectations once they
arrived. The majority of English visitors between 1670 and 1760
were young members of the aristocracy, accompanied by tutors, who
arrived on their way to or from Rome, as part of a 'Grand Tour'
intended to 'finish' their classical education. With the Industrial
Revolution in the second half of the eighteenth century, and the
resultant increasing wealth of the upper middle classes, the number
of visitors to Verona increased although this tourism was derailed
once Napoleon invaded Italy in the late 1790s. After 1815 and the
allied victory at Waterloo there was a new flood of visitors,
previously deprived of the opportunity of continental travel during
the Napoleonic wars. As the nineteenth century progressed,
especially with the arrival of the railway, an increasing number of
visitors appeared from across Europe and even from across the
Atlantic, keen to explore the fabled city of Shakespeare's Romeo
and Juliet. In comparing a myriad of varied accounts, this book
provides an unrivalled perspective on the history of one of Italy's
most seductive cities.
Jan Jacob Slauerhoff (1898-1936) was a ship's doctor serving in
south-east Asia, and is one of the most important twentieth-century
Dutch-language writers. His 1934 novel Adrift in the Middle Kingdom
(Het leven op aarde), is an epic sweep of narrative that takes the
reader from 1920s Shanghai to a forgotten city beyond the Great
Wall of China. Slauerhoff's narrator is a Belfast ship's radio
operator, desperate to escape the sea, who travels inland on a
gun-runner's mission. He moves through extraordinary settings of
opium salons, the house of a Cantonese watch-mender, the siege of
Shanghai, the great flood on the western plains, and the discovery
of oil by the uncomprehending overlord in the hidden city of
Chungking. The fantasy ending transforms the novel from travelogue
and adventure to existential meditation. But running like a thread
of darkness through the story is opium, from poppy head harvesting
to death through addiction. This translation by David McKay, winner
of the 2018 Vondel Prize, is the first English edition of
Slauerhoff's most accessible and enthralling novel. The
Introduction is by Slauerhoff expert Arie Pos and Wendy Gan of the
University of Hong Kong.
At the dawn of the 19th-century, the Prussian explorer Alexander
von Humboldt was granted permission to charter an expedition to
Spain's colonies in the New World. Over the course of five years,
Humboldt would travel to the Orinoco and Amazon rivers, predict the
agricultural and commercial potential of Cuba, climb higher in the
Andes than anyone before him, and acknowledge the achievements of
the ancient indigenous American civilizations. And he recorded it
all in a series of diaries. On occasion of the 250th anniversary of
Humboldt's birth, the drawings from these diaries are now available
in a large format, slip-cased edition. Structured thematically, the
450 illustrations have been painstakingly reproduced, complete with
handwritten notes, ink stains and water spots. Humboldt drew
everything he saw-Incan ruins, electric eels, the transit of
Mercury, silver mines, and ocean currents. In addition to being
remarkably well preserved, these drawings offer tremendous insight
into Humboldt's prescient observations. Featuring commentary by a
renowned expert on Humboldt's work, this breathtaking volume will
bring to life one of history's most accomplished thinkers, while
providing fascinating reading for anyone interested in history and
nature.
In 1909, while dreaming of the Himalaya, Norwegian mountaineer Alf
Bonnevie Bryn and a fellow young climber, the Australian George
Ingle Finch, set their sights on Corsica to build their experience.
The events of this memorable trip form the basis of Bryn's
acclaimed book Tinder og banditter - 'Peaks and Bandits', with
their boisterous exploits delighting Norwegian readers for
generations. Newly translated by Bibbi Lee, this classic of
Norwegian literature is available for the first time in English.
Although Bryn would go on to become a respected mountaineer and
author, and Finch would become regarded as one of the greatest
mountaineers of all time - a legend of the 1922 Everest expedition
- Peaks and Bandits captures them on the cusp of these
achievements: simply two students taking advantage of their Easter
holidays, their escapades driven by their passion for climbing. As
they find themselves in unexpected and often strange places, Bryn's
sharp and jubilant narrative epitomises travel writing at its best.
Balancing its wit with fascinating insight into life in early
twentieth-century Corsica, the infectious enthusiasm of Bryn's
narrative has cemented it as one of Norway's most treasured
adventure books. Peaks and Bandits embodies the timeless joy of
adventure.
The writer Frances Trollope's Domestic Manners of the Americans,
complemented by Auguste Hervieu's satiric illustrations, took the
transatlantic world by storm in 1832. An unusual combination of
realism, visual satire, and novelistic detail, Domestic Manners
recounts Trollope's two years as an Englishwoman living in America.
Trollope makes the civility of an entire nation the subject of her
keen scrutiny, a strategy which would earn her ""more anger and
applause than almost any writer of her day."" Auguste Hervieu's
twenty-six original illustrations, placed and scaled as in the
first edition, are included in this Broadview Edition, inviting
readers to experience the original relationship of image and text.
At once a classic of travel literature and a penetrating portrait of a “sensibility on tour,” Flaubert in Egypt wonderfully captures the young writer’s impressions during his 1849 voyages. Using diaries, letters, travel notes, and the evidence of Flaubert’s traveling companion, Maxime Du Camp, Francis Steegmuller reconstructs his journey through the bazaars and brothels of Cairo and down the Nile to the Red Sea.
Elderly British men display a variety of annoying habits. They
write letters to the newspapers; they drink too much; they
reminisce about the old days; they make lewd comments to younger
women; they shout at the television screen; and they go for long
walks and get lost. Jeremy Cameron chose the last of these options.
Trying to emulate Patrick Leigh Fermor's feat of 1933, he walked
from Hook of Holland to Istanbul. Leigh Fermor was a legendary
figure. Scholar, multilinguist, beautiful prose stylist, war hero,
tough guy, charmer and famous lover: Cameron is none of these
things and he also suffers from a heart condition. Rest assured
that there will be no tedious details of operations or stoicism in
this book. Nor will there be descriptions of understated
generosity, quiet irony or British phlegm. The main point of travel
is to recognise the virtues of staying at home. When at home, it is
not possible to get bogged down in Alpine snow, fall over on one's
face on Kosovan tarmac or suffer a comprehensive mugging on
deserted roads in Greece. Nor does one have to speak foreign
languages, eat foreign food or, above all, drink terrible tea. It
is about two thousand miles from Hook of Holland to Istanbul.
Thirteen countries lie in wait for the walker. They have many
wonderful sights and much fascinating history. Readers will not
find them in this book. They will, however, find a number of
stories of varying authenticity and some very dubious observations
about life. By the time Turkey arrived, Cameron was utterly and
completely fed up with the whole process. Never again would he do
anything quite so stupid. He is currently walking round all the
places in England beginning with the letter Q.
In 1894, Martin Conway became the first man to walk the Alps 'from
end to end' when he completed a 1,000-mile journey from the Col de
Tende in Italy to the summit of the Ankogel in Austria. On a
midsummer's morning, nearly 120 years later, Simon Thompson
followed in his footsteps, setting out to explore both the
mountains and the man. A charming rogue who led a 'fantastically
eventful' life, according to The Times, Conway was a climber and
pioneering explorer of the Himalaya, Spitsbergen, the Andes and
Patagonia; a serial pursuer of American heiresses; an historian,
collector and Slade Professor of Fine Art at Cambridge; a company
director and stock market promoter of dubious gold mines and
non-existent rubber forests; the founder of the Imperial War
Museum; the first foreigner to see the Russian crown jewels after
the revolution; a successful journalist and author of over thirty
books; a liberal politician; and a conservative MP. Shortly before
he died, he was created 1st Baron Conway of Allington. Conway was a
clubbable man who counted Winston Churchill, David Lloyd George,
Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, J. P. Morgan, John Ruskin, Mark Twain
and Edward Whymper among his many friends and acquaintances. An
imperialist, a dreamer, a liar and a cheat, Conway 'walked in
sunshine all his life', according to contemporaries, but he was
also a restless, discontented man, constantly searching for meaning
and purpose in his life. And that search that led him back, time
and time again, to the Alps. In A Long Walk with Lord Conway, Simon
Thompson retraces Conway's long journey over the peaks, passes and
glaciers of the Alps and rediscovers the life of a complex and
remarkable English adventurer.
HOW THE GOLDEN AGE OF TRANSATLANTIC TRAVEL BETWEEN THE WARS
TRANSFORMED WOMEN'S LIVES ACROSS ALL CLASSES - A VIVID CROSS
SECTION OF LIFE ON-BOARD THE ICONIC OCEAN LINERS FROM BELOW DECKS
TO THE CAPTAIN'S TABLE. 'In this riveting slice of social history,
Sian Evans does a brilliant job of describing the unexpected
textures of life at sea...By deep diving into the archives, Sian
Evans has discovered a watery in-between world where the usual
rules didn't quite apply and a spirited woman could get further
than she ever would on dry land. - Mail on Sunday Migrants and
millionairesses, refugees and aristocrats all looking for a way to
improve their lives. After WW1 a world of opportunity was opening
up for women ... Before convenient air travel, transatlantic travel
was the province of the great ocean liners and never more so than
in the glory days of the interwar years. It was an extraordinary
undertaking made by many women. Some traveled for leisure, some for
work; others to find a new life, marriage, to reinvent themselves
or find new opportunities. Their stories have remained largely
untold - until now. Maiden Voyages is a fascinating portrait of
these women, and their lives on board magnificent ocean liners as
they sailed between the old and the new worlds. The ocean liner was
a microcosm of contemporary society, divided by class: from the
luxury of the upper deck, playground for the rich and famous, to
the cramped conditions of steerage or third class travel. These
iconic liners were filled with women of all ages, classes and
backgrounds: celebrities and refugees, migrants and
millionairesses, aristocrats and crew members. Full of incredible
gossip, stories and intrigue, Maiden Voyages has a diverse cast of
inspiring women - from A-listers like Josephine Baker, a dancer
from St Louis who found fame in Paris, Marlene Dietrich and Wallis
Simpson, Violet 'the unsinkable' Jessop, a crew member who survived
the sinking of the Titanic, and entrepreneur Sibyl Colefax, a
pioneering interior designer. Whichever direction they were
travelling, whatever hopes they entertained, they were all under
the spell of life at sea, a spell which would only break when they
went ashore. Maiden Voyages is a compelling and highly entertaining
account of life on board: part dream factory, part place of work,
independence and escape - always moving.
In 1582 Alessandro Valignano, the Visitor to the Jesuit mission in
the East Indies, sent four Japanese boys, two of whom represented
important Christian daimyo in western Japan, to Europe. This book
is an account of their travels. The boys left Japan on 20 February
1582 and disembarked in Lisbon on 11 August 1584. They then
travelled through Portugal, Spain and Italy as far as Rome, the
highpoint of their journey, before returning to Lisbon to begin the
long voyage home on 13 April 1586. They reached Nagasaki on 21 July
1590, amidst great rejoicing, more than eight years after their
departure. During their travels in Europe they had audiences and
less formal meetings with Philip II, king of Spain and Portugal,
and with popes Gregory XIII and Sixtus V, and were received by many
of the most important political, ecclesiastical and social figures
in the places they visited. Until the arrival of the embassy in
Europe, the Euro-Japanese encounter had been almost exclusively one
way: Europeans going to Japan. The embassy was an integral part of
Valignano's strategy for advancing the Jesuit mission in Japan. The
boys chosen were intended to personify Jesuit success in Japan,
raise awareness of Japan in Europe amongst the clerical and secular
elites, and demonstrate conclusively that what the Jesuits had been
writing about Japan since their arrival there in 1549 was not a
fabrication. The embassy was further intended to impress upon the
boys the glory, unity, stability and splendour of Christian Europe,
so that they might report favourably about their experiences on
their return, and counter what Valignano believed were the negative
impressions of Europe left by Portuguese merchants and seamen in
Japan. As part of this plan, a book consisting of thirty-four
colloquia detailing the boys' travels was compiled and translated
into Latin under Valignano's supervision. It was published in Macao
in 1590 with the title De Missione Legatorvm Iaponensium ad Romanum
curiam. Valignano anticipated that it would become a standard text
in Jesuit seminaries in Japan. The present edition is the first
complete version of this rich, complex and impressive work to
appear in English, and is accompanied with maps and illustrations
of the mission, and an introduction discussing its context and the
subsequent reception of the book.
Nobel Prize-winning author Canetti spent only a few weeks in
Marrakesh, but it was a visit that would remain with him for the
rest of his life. In The Voices of Marrakesh, he captures the
essence of that place: the crowds, the smells - of spices, camels
and the souks - and, most importantly to Canetti, the sounds of the
city, from the cries of the blind beggars and the children's call
for alms to the unearthly silence on the still roofs above the
hordes. In these immaculately crafted essays, Canetti examines the
emotions Marrakesh stirred within him and the people who affected
him for ever.
Freya Stark is most famous for her travels in Arabia at a time when
very few men, let alone women, had fully explored its vast
hinterlands. In 1934, she made her first journey to the Hadhramaut
in what is now Yemen - the first woman to do so alone. Even though
that journey ended in disappointment, sickness and a forced rescue,
Stark, undeterred, returned to Yemen two years later. Starting in
Mukalla and skirting the fringes of the legendary and unexplored
Empty Quarter, she spent the winter searching for Shabwa - ancient
capital of the Hadhramaut and a holy grail for generations of
explorers. From within Stark's beautifully-crafted and deeply
knowledgeable narrative emerges a rare and exquisitely-rendered
portrait of the customs and cultures of the tribes of the Arabian
Peninsula. A Winter in Arabia is one of the most important pieces
of literature on the region and a book that placed Freya Stark in
the pantheon of great writers and explorers of the Arab World. To
listen to her voice is to hear the rich echoes of a land whose
'nakedness is clothed in shreds of departed splendour'.
In July 1789 George Cadogan Morgan, born in Bridgend, Wales, and
the nephew of the celebrated radical dissenter Richard Price
(1723-91), found himself caught up in the opening events of the
French Revolution and its consequences. In 1808, his family left
Britain for America where his son, Richard Price Morgan, travelled
extensively, made a descent of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers by
raft and helped build some of the early American railroads. The
adventures of both men are related here via letters George sent
home to his family from France and through the autobiography
written by his son in America.
In 922 AD, an Arab envoy from Baghdad named Ibn Fadlan encountered
a party of Viking traders on the upper reaches of the Volga River.
In his subsequent report on his mission he gave a meticulous and
astonishingly objective description of Viking customs, dress, table
manners, religion and sexual practices, as well as the only
eyewitness account ever written of a Viking ship cremation. Between
the ninth and fourteenth centuries, Arab travellers such as Ibn
Fadlan journeyed widely and frequently into the far north, crossing
territories that now include Russia, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
Their fascinating accounts describe how the numerous tribes and
peoples they encountered traded furs, paid tribute and waged wars.
This accessible new translation offers an illuminating insight into
the world of the Arab geographers, and the medieval lands of the
far north.
This book is described as being 'in a genre all its own'. Truly it
is. Simeon the cat has two ambitions. the first is to become
famous, which is why he writes this book, and the second is to meet
the White Rabbit. While pursuing these goals, he takes time to air
his views on Oxford, Mr Bean, the internet, on how the British do
not value words, and on a while host of other things. He guides us
through Oxford's history, landmarks and legends, and provides an
entertaining and original introduction to the city. Over-confident
in his ability to reason, he enjoys talking with academics and
students. All use their real names in the story - Profs of Physics
and Medieval German, and postgraduate students. He creates havoc in
Blackwell's, discovers an unpublished poem. by Gerard Manley
Hopkins, and lays plans to take the grin off the face of the
Cheshire Cat. Does he really meet the White Rabbit? It seems he
does! Oxford is unique in so many ways. It is the only city in the
world where one is in and out of stories all the time. Morse, Mr
Bean, Bridgehead, Dickens, Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter. There
is no book that does the job of this one in linking story to
reality. It's laugh-out-loud funny, in a dry, sixth-form-humour
way. You'll love it!
|
|