Isabella Bird's Unbeaten Tracks in Japan was published in 1880 and recounts her travels in the Far East from 1876. Bird was recommended an open-air life from an early age as a cure for her physical and nervous difficulties. She toured the United States and Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the Sandwich Islands, before travelling to the Far East in order to strengthen herself to marry Dr John Bishop and live in Edinburgh. Created out of the letters Bird wrote home, primarily to her sister, Volume 1 recounts her experiences as a solo woman traveller living among the Japanese in Yokohama and Niigata. It includes descriptions of clothing, food and drink, education, housing, theatre, women's lifestyles, religion, plant life, medicine, shopping and other day-to-day activities, as well as the vicissitudes and excitement of the conditions and process of travelling, including by boat and pack-horse.

Isabella Bird's Unbeaten Tracks in Japan was published in 1880 and recounts her travels in the Far East, begun four years earlier. Bird was recommended an open-air life from an early age as a cure for her physical and nervous difficulties. She toured the United States and Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the Sandwich Islands, before travelling to the Far East in order to strengthen herself to marry Dr John Bishop and live in Edinburgh. Based on the letters Bird wrote home, primarily to her sister, Volume 2 covers her journeys to Yeso, Tokyo, Kyoto, and the Ise Shrines, and includes her experiences of staying with the Hairy Ainu, the indigenous inhabitants of northern Japan. As with the first volume, it includes much detail of the lifestyles, customs, and habits of the people she encountered, as well as a chapter on Japanese public affairs.

The publications of the Hakluyt Society (founded in 1846) made available edited (and sometimes translated) early accounts of exploration. The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. A member of a noble Roman family, Pietro della Valle began travelling in 1614 at the suggestion of a doctor, as an alternative to suicide after a failed love affair. The letters describing his travels in Turkey, Persia and India were addressed to this advisor. This 1664 English translation of della Valle's letters from India, republished by the Hakluyt Society in 1892, contains fascinating ethnographic details, particularly on religious beliefs, and is an important source for the history of the Keladi region of South India.

The publications of the Hakluyt Society (founded in 1846) made available edited (and sometimes translated) early accounts of exploration. The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. Vasco de Gama (c. 1460 1524) was a Portuguese explorer who commanded the first European expedition to sail directly to India. He was later appointed Viceroy of Portuguese India in 1524. This volume, first published in 1869, contains an account of his expeditions written by the Portuguese historian Gaspar Correa (c. 1496 c. 1563), taken from his book Lendas da India. His work is an important contemporary history of Portuguese colonialism in India, using contemporary sources not available to later Portuguese historians.

Penned in the 1820s but not published until 1901, Fenton's Journal is an intimate portrait of the lives of European expatriates in the early decades of the nineteenth century. Written by a witness to the heyday of Empire, but read by those who were soon to experience its decline, Fenton's diary leads readers from Calcutta to Tasmania. The focus is domestic and relates 'a familiar picture of the everyday occurrences, manners and habits of life of persons undistinguished either by wealth or fame', but it is this informality that makes Fenton's account especially engaging. The reader remains with the author intermittently until her return to the family's English home. Together, her contrasting accounts of exotic foreign lands and the 'dull and downright reality' of Britain provide a rare insight into the life of an adventurous woman. For more information on this author, see http: //orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=fentel

Athletic, intellectual and sensitive, even in her youth, Gertrude Bell was an ideal chronicler for a public fascinated by the Orient. Blending descriptions of customs, communities, archaeology, agriculture, The Desert and the Sown (1907) recounts a dramatic portion of her expedition across Syria. Enriched by over three hundred photographic illustrations, Bell's prose leads readers from the Mosque of 'Umar to the shores of the Dead Sea, the Castle of Salkhad and the dramatic landmarks of Kanaw t. Notwithstanding the inclusion of such picturesque sites, the author never allows the spectacular to overshadow the significant. As she herself professed, her narrative contains frequent references to the 'conditions of unimportant persons', arguing that 'they do not appear so unimportant to one who is in their midst'. As such, this volume reflects a compassionate and respectful attitude to other civilizations, the implications of which are as significant today as they were to Bell's contemporaries.

The publications of the Hakluyt Society (founded in 1846) made available edited (and sometimes translated) early accounts of exploration. The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. This volume contains the first English translation (in 1863) of a Latin manuscript written in about 1330 and published in France in 1839. Jordanus was a Dominican missionary to India, who became bishop of Columbum (probably a town on the Malabar coast). He recorded anything he thought noteworthy on his travels from the Mediterranean to India via Persia and back again, and his remarks on the climate, produce, people and customs of the countries he passed through are a valuable source of information.

Western exploration of the Arabian Desert began in the mid-eighteenth century, but it was not until the nineteenth century that the British officers of the Indian colonial government undertook surveys of the areas remote from the major pilgrimage routes. Charles Doughty (1843 1926) spent two years among various nomad tribes and wrote in 1888 what would be the first comprehensive Western work on the geography of Arabia, in an attempt, as he says in the preface, to 'set forth faithfully some parcel of the soil of Arabia smelling of s mn and camels'. His classic and justly famous account is a fantastic piece of travel writing that shows full understanding of the area, the people and all aspects of nomadic life in the desert.

The Yangtze Valley and Beyond, first published in 1899, contains the account by the redoubtable Isabella Bird (now Mrs J. F. Bishop) of a journey through central China in 1896 1897. The volume focuses on her travels though the province of Szechuan and among the Man-tze of the Somo territory. Many of the areas she explored and carefully described were almost unknown to European visitors and had not been mentioned in any earlier English publications. The volume is based on journal letters and the diary written during her journey, and it is generously illustrated with photographs and Chinese drawings. Bishop's work was warmly received in England and praised especially for the information included on agriculture and industry. The Geographical Journal heralded the work as 'undoubtedly one of the most important contributions to English literature on that country'. It remains a key source for late nineteenth-century British perceptions of China.

First published in 1863, this is the enchanting account of the travels of George Fleming (1833 1901) in the far north of China. Fleming began his epic journey in Tien-tsin, where he was stationed as an army doctor at a British military garrison; there he was granted special permission to travel almost 700 miles as far as Moukden and to Manchu Tartary, the birth place of the Manchu dynasty. Fleming's route took him through many regions that had been inaccessible to western travellers until the Treaty of Tien-tsin (1858 1859). His vivid account describes the people and customs he met; the landscape; the climate; the language and dialects; the agricultural practices of the various regions; and the struggles and hardships he faced during his journey. Fleming's work is a monument of Victorian travel literature and an important source in understanding Victorian perceptions of China and of Chinese culture.

The publications of the Hakluyt Society (founded in 1846) made available edited (and sometimes translated) early accounts of exploration. The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. This 1863 volume contains a Victorian translation of Ludovico di Varthema's account of his travels, originally published in 1510, and translated into many European languages within a few years. Ludovico set off from Italy in 1502 (determined, he says, 'to investigate some small portion of this our terrestrial globe') and travelled first to Egypt and Syria; he then journeyed through the Arabian peninsula (where he was imprisoned as a spy), Persia and India, and reached the Molucca islands before returning to Europe in 1508.

'I have made up my mind (with God's leave) to go to America - and to start as soon after Christmas as it will be safe'

So wrote an exuberant Dickens shortly before his voyage to America in 1842. He was the most famous of many travellers of his time who journeyed to the New World, curious to find out about the revolutionary new civilization which had captured the English imagination. His frank, often humorous descriptions cover everything from his comically uncomfortable sea voyage to his wonder at the Niagara Falls. In general Dickens is critical of what he saw as a society ruled by money and built on slavery, with unsavoury manners and a corrupt press. His unfavourable account provoked a hostile response in America and Britain, although he was to change his opinion later.

American Notes can be read as a journey in the long-established tradition of Chaucer, Bunyan or Swift - as a progress to knowledge through varied experiences. Above all, it is a fascinating account of what was for Dickens an illuminating encounter with the New World.

This edition includes a critical introduction, chronology, explanatory notes and three appendices reflecting Dickens's changing views on America.

The diary of Malthus's Scandinavian tour, which forms the main part of this book, was discovered in 1961 by Mr Robert Malthus, a surviving family member. It has been transcribed and edited by Patricia James. The journals reveal Malthus as a lively and entertaining travelling companion and an amusing observer of the social scene. There is a good deal about food and drink, pretty girls and eccentric men; there are close accounts of social habits, descriptions of country scenes, villages, towns and libraries and reflections on wages, prices, trade and occupations of the people as well as on marriage and population. James provides notes to the text and a good biographical introduction. Social and economic historians will clearly need this book; but above all it can be read as an engaging personal record of an eager traveller.

This book gives a complete account of all that Locke saw, did and heard during his four years in France. The entries vary from laconic jottings to detailed accounts - full of colour and wit - of life in Paris and the provinces. Locke's variety of interests presents a vivid and thorough account of France at that time. He observed and recorded the absolutism of Louis XIV and the poverty of the peasants, the growing persecution of the Protestants and the external manifestations of Catholicism, recent developments in science and technology - even agricultural methods and the system of taxes. So that this is a book for the general reader as well as for the student of Locke, the social historian and the historian of science.

'Are we the same, I wonder, when all our surroundings, association, acquaintances are changed? I conclude that it is not the person who danced with you at Mansfield St who writes to you today from Persia. Yet there are dregs, English sediment at the bottom of my sherbet, and perhaps they flavour it more than I think. I write to you of Persia: I am not me, that is my only excuse. I am merely pouring out for you some of what I have received in the last two months.' When Gertrude Bell's uncle was appointed Minister in Tehran in 1891, she declared that the great ambition of her life was to visit Persia. Several months later, she did. And so began a lifetime of travel and a lifelong enchantment with what she saw as the romance of the East, which evolved into a deep understanding of its cultures and people. This vivid and impressionistic series of sketches, her first foray into writing, is an evocative meditation that moves between Persia's heroic past and its long decline; the public face of Tehran and the otherworldly 'secret, mysterious life of the East', the lives of its women, its lush, enclosed gardens; from the bustling cities to the lonely wastelands of Khorasan.

This book is one of the first studies of twentieth-century travel literature in French, tracking the form from the colonial past to the postcolonial present. Whereas most recent explorations of travel literature have addressed English-language material, Forsdick's study complements these by presenting a body of material that has previously attracted little attention, ranging from conventional travel writing to other cultural phenomena (such as the Colonial Exposition of 1931) in which changing attitudes to travel are apparent.
Travel in Twentieth-Century French and Francophone Cultures explores the evolution of attitudes to cultural diversity, explaining how each generation seems simultaneously to foretell the collapse and reinvention of "elsewhere." It also follows the progressive renegotiation of understandings of travel (and travel literature) across the twentieth century, focusing in particular on the emergence of travel narratives from France's former colonies. The book suggests that an exclusive colonial understanding of travel as a practice defined along the lines of class, gender, and ethnicity has slowly been transformed so that travel has become an enabling figure--encapsulated in notions such as James Clifford's "traveling cultures"--central to analyses of contemporary global culture. Engaging initially with Victor Segalen's early twentieth-century reflection on travel and exoticism and Albert Kahn's "Archives de la Planete," Forsdick goes on to examine a series of interrelated texts and phenomena: early African travel narratives, inter-war ethnography, post-war accounts of Citroen 2CV journeys, the travel stories of immigrant workers, the work of Nicholas Bouvier andthe Pour une litterature voyageuse movement, narratives of recent walking journeys, and contemporary Polynesian literature. In delineating a francophone space stretching far beyond metropolitan France itself, the book contributes to new understandings of French and Francophone Studies, and will also be of interest to those interested in issues of comparatism as well as colonial and postcolonial culture and identity.

In the summer of 1627, Barbary corsairs raided Iceland, killing dozens of people and abducting close to four hundred to sell into slavery in North Africa. Among those taken were the Lutheran minister Reverend Olafur Egilsson. Reverend Olafur (born in the same year as William Shakespeare and Galileo Galilei) wrote The Travels to chronicle his experiences both as a captive in Algiers and as a traveler across Europe (he journeyed alone from Algiers to Copenhagen in an attempt to raise funds to ransom the captives that remained in the Barbary States). He was a keen observer, and the narrative is filled with a wealth of detail-social, political, economic, religious-about both the Maghreb and Europe. It is also a moving story on the human level: we witness a man enduring great personal tragedy and struggling to reconcile such calamity with his understandingof God. The Travels is the first-ever English translation of the Icelandic texts. Until now, the corsair raid on Iceland has remained largely unknown in the English speaking world. To give a clearer sense of the extraordinary events connected with that raid, this edition of The Travels includes not only Reverend Olafur's first-person narrative but also a wealth of contemporary letters describing both the events of the raid itself and the conditions in North Africa under which the enslaved Icelanders lived. The book has Appendices containing background information on the cities of Algiers and Sale in the seventeenth century, on Iceland in the seventeenth century, on the manuscripts accessed for the translation, and on the book's early modern European context. The combination of Reverend Olafur's narrative, the letters, and thematerial in the Appendices provides a first-hand, in-depth view of early seventeenth-century Europe and the Maghreb equaled by few otherworks dealing with the period. We are pleased to offer it to the wider audience that an English edition allows.

From the moment Karen Blixen arrived in Kenya in 1914 to manage a coffee plantation, her heart belonged to Africa. Drawn to the intense colours and ravishing landscapes, Karen Blixen spent her happiest years on the farm and her experiences and friendships with the people around her are vividly recalled in these memoirs. Out of Africa is the story of a remarkable and unconventional woman and of a way of life that has vanished for ever.

'The Natural History Museum, South Kensington, supply full directions for preparing animal skins, which should be carefully studied, and a mouse or two should be skinned by the would-be collected before leaving England...' Such is the advice given to fellow hunters by the author of this work, C.V.A Peel, the celebrated Victorian writer, traveller and big-game hunter. In an age when conservation of wildlife stands at the forefront of zoological study, it is sobering to recognise that so much of our knowledge stems from the writings of men who would sooner have an animal's head on the wall than its photograph in an album. Nevertheless, men such as peel were acute observers of nature and this account of hunting in Somaliland provides a unique record of the flora and fauna of that region in East Africa which lies between the Equator and the Gulf of Aden. First published in 1889, and here republished in facsimile, complete with photographs, drawings and diagrams, the book is a fascinating study of East Africa through the eyes of a hunting man.

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.

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.

This book is a major contribution to the study of the encounter between Europeans and non-Europeans in the early modern period and to a neglected aspect of the cultural transformation of Europe throughout the Renaissance. Focusing on European travelers in India and their analysis of Hindu society, politics and religion, it also offers a detailed and systematic study of the variety of travel narratives describing South India from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries. In addition, the book proposes a novel approach to the study of European attitudes toward non-Europeans.

'For most men, as Epicurus has remarked, rest is stagnation and activity madness. Mad or not, the activity that I have been pursuing for the last twenty years takes the form of voyages to remote, mountainous regions.' H.W. 'Bill' Tilman's fourteenth book Ice with Everything describes three more of those voyages, 'the first comparatively humdrum, the second totally disastrous, and the third exceedingly troublesome'. The first voyage describes Tilman's 1971 attempt to reach East Greenland's remote and ice-bound Scoresby Sound. The largest fjord system in the world was named after the father of Whitby whaling captain, William Scoresby, who first charted the coastline in 1822. Scoresby's two-volume Account of the Arctic Regions provided much of the historical inspiration for Tilman's northern voyages and fuelled his fascination with Scoresby Sound and the unclimbed mountains at its head. Tilman's first attempt to reach the fjord had already cost him his first boat, Mischief, in 1968. The following year, a 'polite mutiny' aboard Sea Breeze had forced him to turn back within sight of the entrance, so with a good crew aboard in 1971, it was particularly frustrating for Tilman to find the fjord blocked once more, this time by impenetrable sea ice at the entrance. Refusing to give up, Tilman's obsession with Scoresby Sound continued in 1972 when a series of unfortunate events led to the loss of Sea Breeze, crushed between a rock and an ice floe. Safely back home in Wales, the inevitable search for a new boat began. 'One cannot buy a biggish boat as if buying a piece of soap. The act is almost as irrevocable as marriage and should be given as much thought'. The 1902 pilot cutter Baroque was acquired and after not inconsiderable expense, proved equal to the challenge. Tilman's first troublesome voyage aboard her to West Greenland in 1973 completes this collection.

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.