Compiled during a three-month stay in Granada, Spain, Tales of the Alhambra assembles descriptions, myths, and narratives of historical events. After completing a literary project in Madrid, author Washington Irving traveled to Granada, Spain. Immediately taken by its beauty and extravagance, Irving requested a travel guide and began filling notebooks and journals with his observations and description of the magnificent setting. Beginning with an expedition through the Andalusian mountains on horseback, cherishing the grandeur of the nature, Irving took his time to enjoy and observe the landscape and culture of the country. After their horseback ride through the mountains, Irving and his guide stopped at an inn for a drink. During their stay, Irving witnessed artistic culture through music and dance, noting how the locals seemed to celebrate every-day occurrences, creating a happy environment. Upon entering the city, Irving requested permission from the governor to stay at the Alhambra palace. Originally built on the ruins of Roman buildings, the Alhambra was a small fortress built in 889 CE, and had been largely ignored and forgotten by the time Irving arrived in Granada. While staying in the Alhambra, Irving explored the abandoned palace and recollected the myths set within its walls, recording every detail of its architecture, story, and mystery. The Alhambra palace had been mostly forgotten, and left unmaintained until Washington Irving's narrative and recollections revived interest. Upon its original publication in 1832, Washington Irving's Tales of the Alhambra piqued the curiosity of readers who were completely engrossed in Irving's description of the previously abandoned fortress. With delicate prose and intricate detail, Tales of the Alhambra appeal to readers' sense of adventure, and allows its audience to explore the wonders of Granada, Spain alongside Washington Irving. This edition of Washington Irving's Tales of the Alhambra features a new, eye-catching cover design and is printed in a font that is both modern and readable, inviting contemporary audiences to divulge in the grandeur and beauty of a medieval fortress.

Samuel Pepys walked round London for miles. The 21/2 miles to Whitehall from his house near the Tower of London was accomplished on an almost daily basis, and so many of his professional conversations took place whilst walking that the streets became for him an alternative to his office. With Walking Pepys's London, the reader will come to know life in London from the pavement up and see its streets from the perspective of this renowned diarist. The city was almost as much a character in Pepys's life as his family or friends, and the book draws many parallels between his experience of 17th-century London and the lives of Londoners today. Colliss Harvey's new book reconstructs the sensory and emotional experience of the past, bringing geography, biography and history into one. Full of fascinating details and written with extraordinary sensitivity, Walking Pepys's London is an unmissable exploration into the places that made the greatest English diarist of all time.

Whether he's looking for wild orangutans on Borneo or diving off the coast of South Africa, Randy Wayne White is one of America's most adventurous travelers. In Last Flight Out, White challenges and charms us with tales of his excursions into the dangerous, into the ludicrous, and - especially - into the heart of humanity.
Randy White is a "mover" and has no time for people who can't keep up. Join him as he dives in the infamous lake called the Bad Blue Hole on the desolate Cat Island in the Bahamas. Search for the perfect hot pepper in Colombia, and closer to home; go raccoon hunting in Pioneer, Ohio, where the hunted almost always outsmart the hunters. Get in the ring with Shine Forbes, an eighty-year-old fighter in prime condition and Ernest Hemingway's former sparring partner, and go on a secret mission to steal back General Manuel Noriega's bar stools. Though he rarely finds what he's looking for - such as the half-human, half-alligator creature known as "Gatorman" - he cultivates his unique ability to revel in the unique and comical situations of each exotic trip.
From a jungle survival school in Panama to a week at a professional wrestler's training camp, White leaves the reader mesmerized by the potential of undiscovered places and the promise of endless adventure in unfamiliar territory. An icon of the new breed of thick-skinned, high endurance travelers, Randy White is the real deal.

The subzero temperatures were only one of the dangers explorer Frederick Cook (1865-1940) faced in his attempts to reach the North Pole. During his extraordinary and harrowing journey, he fought off arctic wolves and polar bears, lived through ice storms, almost starved on several occasions, and faced long and lonely hours of isolation. His book relates how he learned from Eskimos how to survive in the Arctic, hunting musk ox to survive, harpooning walruses, and traveling by dog sled. After his journey, he defended himself against the charges of fellow explorer Robert Peary, who claimed that Cook had lied about reaching the Pole. My Attainment of the Pole is not only a great read for any armchair explorer, it is also a controversial work that contributed to a dispute that lasted for decades.

This anthology aims to challenge stereotypes of women travellers. Rather than simply presenting writings by Victorian women who travelled bravely around the world disregarding social convention and danger, the editors present a range of writing and possible ways of being a woman traveller. As well as the 'eccentric' woman traveller, the editors have included writings by those who might be seen as failed travellers, cautious and conventional travellers and those who did not conform to the adventurous heroine stereotype. Because travelling as a woman and writing as a woman presents the author with a number of textual problems which must be negotiated, Foster and Mills have chosen to include writings which confronted these problems and which resolved them (or did not resolve them) in different ways. These textual problems include the depiction of other women, the representation of spatial relations, the negotiations undertaken in relation to the adventure heroine narrative and character and the position taken by the author in relation to the representation of knowledge. These issues are all crucial in relation to travel writing by women , and the women, whose writing has been collected together in this anthology have made bold decisions in relation to them. -- .

Saturnine and quick-tempered, the formidable North Sea is often overlooked - even by those living within a stone's throw of its steel-grey waters. But as playground, theatre of war and cultural crossing-point, it has shaped the world in myriad ways, forged villains and heroes, and determined the fates of nations. It's not all grim, though: the seaside holiday was born on North Sea beaches, and artists, poets and writers have been as equally inspired by glinting sun on the wave-tops as they have the drama of a winter storm. With a wry eye and a warm coat, Tom Blass travels the edges of the North Sea meeting fishermen, artists, bomb disposal experts, burgermeisters - and those who have found themselves flung to the sea's perimeters quite by chance. In doing so he attempts to piece together its manifold histories and to reveal truths, half-truths and fictions otherwise submerged...

In The Atlas of an Anxious Man, Christoph Ransmayr offers a mesmerizing travel diary-a sprawling tale of earthly wonders seen by a wandering eye. This is an exquisite, lyrically told travel story. Translated by Simon Pare, this unique account follows Ransmayr across the globe: from the shadow of Java's volcanoes to the rapids of the Mekong and Danube Rivers, from the drift ice of the Arctic Circle to Himalayan passes, and on to the disenchanted islands of the South Pacific. Ransmayr begins again and again with, "I saw. . ." recounting to the reader the stories of continents, eras, and landscapes of the soul. Like maps, the episodes come together to become a book of the world-one that charts the life and death, happiness and fate of people bound up in images of breathtaking beauty. "One of the German language's most gifted young novelists."-Library Journal, on The Terrors of Ice and Darkness

Indian Travel Writing is a new five-volume collection co-published by Routledge and Edition Synapse. Hitherto, the paucity of readily available travel writing produced by imperial subjects themselves has long been apparent, and this anthology addresses that lack. A veritable treasure-trove, it brings together scarce documents which are currently widely dispersed or very difficult for scholars, researchers, and students across the globe to locate and use. The collection confirms the deeply cosmopolitan sensibility possessed by many Indian travellers, and their narratives provide insightful contemporary critiques of the British Empire and of Euro-American culture more generally. The gathered works often exhibit considerable expertise in local cuisine, politics, and poetry, as well as a keen interest in political theory, human rights, and class conflict. Beyond Britain, continental Europe, and the USA, the collection also includes writing by Indians who travelled to Russia, China, the Far East, Australia, and Africa. Indian Travel Writing draws on the narratives of a diverse range of writers, including Indian princes, statesmen, lawyers, reformers, sportsmen, artists and curators, politicians, and merchants. Each piece is reproduced in facsimile, giving users a strong sense of immediacy to the texts and permitting citation to the original pagination. The collection will be particularly welcomed by historians and those working in colonial-discourse studies. It will also be of interest to anthropologists and literary scholars. Each volume is supplemented by a substantial introduction, newly written by the editor, Pramod K. Nayar. The collection also includes a detailed appendix providing data on the provenance of the gathered materials. *********************** Pramod K. Nayar is also the editor of the five-volume Women in Colonial India (2013) (978-0-415-52555-8), another Routledge and Edition Synapse co-publication.

This book, first published in 1903, is an account of Lafcadio Hearn's insights and experiences of Japan. Hearn, known also by the Japanese name Koizumi Yakumo, was an international writer who was best known for his books about Japan and Japanese culture. This book will be of interest to students of history and Asian Studies.

What is a meaningful life? What does it mean to flourish? Antonia Case, the co-founder of New Philosopher and Womankind magazines, quits her corporate job in the city and, with her partner, travels across the world in search of meaning. In a quest to find answers, she turns off the soundtrack of the media, rids herself of technology, and with little more than books as carry-on luggage, she journeys from Buenos Aires to Paris, from Barcelona to Byron Bay, seeking guidance from ancient philosophers and modern-day psychologists on what is a good life, and what is a life worth living. Along the way she discovers why winning the lottery doesn't make you happy, why making is better than having, and how love and belonging are vital to our sense of selves. Packed with insight into life’s big questions, Flourish will take you on a riveting journey in search of what matters most.

Martyn Murray was finding modern life, with all its restrictions and controls, suffocating. Following years of soul-searching, his father's death triggered him into opening the old logbooks and charts to retrace the sailing trips they had once shared together. He determined to revisit those waters and bring home the freedom of the seas. Falling in love with an old ketch in Ireland, he bought and restored her enough to sail back to Scotland. Over the next two summers he cruised Scotland's Western Isles, with one goal: to reach St Kilda - the remotest part of the British Isles, 40 miles from the Outer Hebrides. During his cruising he considered the islanders and their sense of freedom - often restricted by absentee landlords and officialdom. He riled against bureaucracy and commercial enterprise restricting the yachtsman's ability to roam free. For parts of his journey he was joined by the beguiling Kyla; a rare, independent spirit who both excited and frustrated Martyn. But much of Martyn's voyaging was undertaken alone, encountering a variety of places, situations and characters along the way. He attempted his long-awaited sail out to St Kilda through the teeth of a storm, believing that achieving this feat would bring him the freedom and clarity that he craved. What he came up against was far more testing and turbulent than the tides and gales of the North Atlantic. As he sailed back to the mainland things fell into place: a sense of achievement in completing the arduous voyage alone, but - most of all - an understanding of who he is, clarity on his relationship with Kyla and a real sense of his own freedom.

This, the first title in a new series, Nature Retreats, which presents the most beautifully-designed holiday homes, with stunning mountain views. Travel journalist Sebastiaan Bedaux gathered 30 of the most stylish hideouts in the world in Mountain View. Despite the great variety of styles, different price tags and unique geography of the houses, they do have one thing in common: they are the stuff of dreams. The series will celebrate architecturally elegant hidden gems, surrounded by nature - deep in the woods, high up in the mountains, or built by the water - and all available for rent! Find some peace and quiet and let the splendour of the building and the unique landscape around it inspire you.

Obie encompasses a decades-long sweep of his life’s work and covers the globe. It is part coffee-table book, part travelogue, part autobiography and part storybook, with a bit of philosophy thrown in for good measure. It’s a great photographer, documenter and character looking back through his ever-increasing archive (built up over 60 years) and choosing the images that resonate the most, and which have a story to tell. Obie captures the rare, the human, the wonderful, the cosmic even. And he doesn’t just take pictures; he also meticulously records it all in words. His descriptions are often as intriguing, as beautiful or as crazy as his photographs.

First published in 2006. A traveller's tale set in the islands of Samoa with the legendary traveller Robert Louis Stevenson as guide, this book is valuable not only for its enjoyment as a tale of adventure, but also for its record of Stevenson himself - a literacy figure more commonly seen as author and not subject.

This collection includes the first critical editions of both Anne Grant's Letters from the Mountains (1806), one of the Romantic era's most successful non-fictional accounts of the Scottish Highlands, and Elizabeth Isabella Spence's Letters from the North Highlands (1816), a work that, while influenced by Grant's Letters, attempted to move the genre of the Scottish travelogue in new directions. Read together, these volumes offer complementary views of Scottish Highland life at a time of major historical transition: Grant was offering outsiders her perspective as a long-time resident of the region, while Spence was, unapologetically, writing as a tourist. The Highlands were central to Romantic-era debates on subjects ranging from landscape and aesthetics to national identities, and, as this collection demonstrates, women were making significant contributions to those debates. The four volume set, edited by Kirsteen McCue and Pam Perkins, is accompanied by new editorial material including a new general introduction and headnotes to each work.

How to Observe Morals and Manners is the first systematic and substantive treatise on the methodology of sociological research. First published in 1838 and long out of print, this new edition presents for modern students research techniques used by those whose work has been the foundation for present day social science. The book is based upon two years of intensive field research in the United States, and is a pioneering benchmark for all subsequent methodology texts in sociology.

Martineau charts a comprehensive guide to sociological observation, exploring problems of bias, hasty generalization, samples, reactivity, interviews, participant observation, corroboration, and data recording techniques. Couching her observations as advice to travellers visiting foreign lands, she warns against preconceptions and urges strict reporting of observed patterns of cross-sections of social life. She also illustrates how to use interview data to corroborate observational data. Pragmatic tips and specific questions are suggested for exploring the major institutions of society, including religion, education, marriage, popular culture, markets, prisons, police, media, government, fine arts, and charities.

Intended as a treatise on methodology, the book is also an insightful work of theory. Before Marx, and well before Durkheim and Weber, Martineau examined social class, forms of religion, types of suicide, national character, domestic relations and the status of women, delinquency and criminology, and the intricate interrelationships between social institutions and the individual. The book will be of interest to sociologists, geographers, anthropologists, historians, and researchers in women's studies. The introduction by Michael R. Hill locates the book within Martineau's overall epistemology of social analysis, revealing her to be a reflexive, critical, and scientific pioneer of sociological thought.

First Published in 1968. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

** Winner of the RSL Christopher Bland Prize ** Uncovering the hidden love triangle between novelist Elizabeth Bowen and the author's grandparents - the critically acclaimed biography with never-before-seen letters detailing the affair. For readers who were swept up in Laura Cumming's On Chapel Sands, Daniel Mendelsohn's An Odyssey and Francesca Wade's Square Haunting. A death in the family delivers Julia Parry a box of letters. Dusty with age, they reveal a secret love affair between the celebrated novelist Elizabeth Bowen and the academic Humphry House - Julia's grandfather. So begins a life-changing quest to understand the affair, which had profound repercussions for Julia's family, not least her grandmother, Madeline. Julia traces these three very different characters through 1930s Oxford and Ireland, Texas, Calcutta in the last days of Empire, and on into World War II. With a supporting cast that includes Isaiah Berlin and Virginia Woolf, The Shadowy Third opens up a world with complex attitudes to love and sex, duty and ambition, and to writing itself.

This extraordinary series of observations on England and Ireland complements de Tocqueville's masterpieces on the United States and France in the mid-nineteenth century. These pages are perhaps the most penetrating writings on the spirit of British politics. In effect, as indicated by John Stuart Mill, de Tocqueville was the Montesquieu of the nineteenth century. This is especially the case if one thinks of the present Irish situation. His political acumen reached into the future -which is now our present.

Naples is always a shock, flaunting beauty and squalor like nowhere else. It is the only city in Europe whose ancient past still lives in its irrepressible people. In 1503, Naples was the Mediterranean capital of Spain's world empire and the base for the Christian struggle with Islam. It was a European metropolis matched only by Paris and Istanbul, an extraordinary concentration of military power, lavish consumption, poverty and desperation. It was to Naples in 1606 that Michelangelo Merisi fled after a fatal street fight, and there released a great age in European art - until everything erupted in a revolt by the dispossessed, and the people of an occupied city brought Europe into the modern world. Ranging across nearly three thousand years of Neapolitan life and art, from the first Greek landings in Italy to the author's own, less auspicious, arrival thirty-something years ago, Street Fight in Naples brings vividly to life the tumultuous and, at times, tragic history of Naples.

'Impossible to put down' Observer 'One of the great books of the century' Times Literary Supplement Rebecca West's epic masterpiece not only provides deep insight into the former country of Yugoslavia; it is a portrait of Europe on the brink of war. A heady cocktail of personal travelogue and historical insight, this product of an implacably inquisitive intelligence remains essential for anyone attempting to understand the history of the Balkan states, and the wider ongoing implications for a fractured Europe.

In 1955 the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman, southeast of Saudi Arabia on the Arabian Sea, was a truly medieval Islamic State, shuttered against all progress under the aegis of its traditionalist and autocratic ruler. But it was also nearly the end of an imperial line, for in those days the British Government was still powerful in Arabia. Rumors of subversion and the intrigues of foreign powers mingled with the unsettling smell of oil to propel the sultan on a royal progress across the desert hinterland. It was an historic journey--the first crossing of the Omani desert by motorcar. Jan Morris accompanied His Highness as a professional observer, and was inspired by the experience to write her major work of imperial history, The Pax Britannica Trilogy.