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Books > Travel > Travel writing
This is the first fully annotated old-spelling edition of the entire text of the autograph English journal of Robert Bargrave (1628-61), recording his extensive travels as a merchant. This manuscript (now Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson C 799), describes four separate journeys made by Bargrave: his sea voyage from England to Constantinople; an arduous return journey overland from Constantinople to England, via Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Germany, and the Low Countries; extensive travels, for both commercial and cultural purposes, in Spain, Sicily, Italy and the Morea; and a return journey from Venice to Margate, via Trento, Innsbruck, and Augsburg, including his visit to Heidelberg where he met the exiled English royalist community at the court of Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia. The introduction to the edition gives detailed consideration to the political, religious, and personal affiliations of the Bargraves, a prominent Kentish family, with special reference to their experiences of overseas travel. While abroad, Robert also twice met up with his cousin, John Bargrave (c. 1610-80), the noted traveller and antiquarian. The introduction also provides an assessment of the historical, literary, and geographical importance of Robert Bargrave's journey; a survey of his extensive musical and dramatic interests; and the first detailed account of the provenances of both MS Rawlinson C 799 and now a lost earlier draft of this journal, identified here as the Eastry Court Manuscript. The edition includes seventeen illustrations, Bargrave family trees, and a selective bibliography of primary and secondary sources consulted.
It's 3 a.m. and Elizabeth Gilbert is sobbing on the bathroom floor. She's in her thirties, she has a husband, a house, they're trying for a baby - and she doesn't want any of it. A bitter divorce and a turbulent love affair later, she emerges battered and bewildered and realises it is time to pursue her own journey in search of three things she has been missing: pleasure, devotion and balance. So, she travels to Rome, where she learns Italian from handsome, brown-eyed identical twins and gains twenty-five pounds, an ashram in India, where she finds that enlightenment entails getting up in the middle of the night to scrub the temple floor, and Bali where a toothless medicine man of indeterminate age offers her a new path to peace: simply sit still and smile. And slowly happiness begins to creep up on her.
A classic of modern travel writing, An Area of Darkness is Nobel laureate V.S. Naipaul's profound reckoning with his ancestral homeland. 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. This edition is introduced by internationally acclaimed author Paul Theroux. Traveling from the bureaucratic morass of Bombay to the ethereal beauty of Kashmir, from a sacred ice cave in the Himalayas to an abandoned temple near Madras, Naipaul encounters a dizzying cross-section of humanity: browbeaten government workers and imperious servants, a suavely self-serving holy man and a deluded American religious seeker. An Area of Darkness also abounds with Naipaul's strikingly original responses to India's paralyzing caste system, its acceptance of poverty and squalor, and the conflict between its desire for self-determination and its nostalgia for the British raj. This may be the most elegant and passionate book ever written about the subcontinent.
First published between 1926-1931, with the invaluable addition of introductions and explanatory notes, maps and appendices, this series makes available in English inaccessible texts of travel from around the globe. 'The variety of the Broadway Travellers becomes more remarkable and refreshing with every new addition to the series. It is possible to range from Bristol to Darien, from China to Peru and to pick a Puritan, a Moslem, a Jesuit or a footman for one's guide. The English denounce the Spanish, the Spanish watch the French, and the Portuguese fight the Dutch. The drama of the three great centuries of discovery - the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth - are revealed by the shrewdest of observers' - The New Statesman.
First published in 1930. The wandering Jew is a very real character
in the great drama of history. He has travelled as nomad and
settler, as fugitive and conqueror, as exile and colonist and as
merchant and scholar. Of necessity bilingual and therefore the
master of many languages, the Jew was the ideal commercial
traveller and interpreter.
First published in 1927. John Macdonald (1741-96) was born, and
died, a Scottish Highlander. First published at the time of the
French Revolution, these memoirs of his days in service provide a
rich panorama of life in the company of blind fiddlers,
maid-servants, the Scottish aristocracy, soldiers, historians,
Oriental Princes, servants of the East India Company and men of
great wealth, including James Coutts the banker. In 1768 - as the
result of an errand - it fell to Macdonald to witness the death of
Laurence Sterne.
First published in 1928.
When first published in 1928, Herbert's work enjoyed immediate
success. The narrative is of considerable importance from an
historical point of view, as it gives the only detailed account of
the first English embassy to Persia. It also paints a graphic
picture of the Perisa and the Persians in the early part of the
seventeenth century, with vivid and extensive descriptions of the
towns of Abbas, Lar, Shiraz, Persepolis, Isfahan, Ashraf, Tehran,
Qazvin, Qum and Kashan.
'Of all literary fakes this is surely the most impudent, ingenious,
and successful. The Comtesse D'Aulnoy was never in Spain (but) she
was a born traveller. Not without reason have the editors of The
Broadway Travellers included her fiction in their library of fact.
For, despite its falseness, it is intellectually the real thing.'
Saturday Review
First published in 1929.
'One of the most fascinating travel books of all time' Times Literary Supplement 'He could not have been more 'modern' if he had been born in the twentieth century' Evening Standard Ibn Battuta was the only medieval traveller who is known to have visited the lands of every Muhammadan ruler of his time and the extent of his journeys is estimated to be at least 75,000 miles. His work presents a descriptive account of Muhammadan society in the second quarter of the fourteenth century, which illustrates, among other things, how wide the sphere of influence of the Muslim merchants was. Ibn Battuta's interest in places was subordinate to his interest in people and his geographical knowledge was gained entirely from personal experience. For his details he relied exclusively on his memory, cultivated by the system of a theological education. This edition, translated afresh from the Arabic text, provides extensive notes which enable the journeys to be followed in detail. Important historical and religious background to the Travels is also added by H. A. R. Gibb.
First published in 1930. This volume contains letters and narratives of some of the Elizabethans who went to India. Here the beginnings of the British Indian Empire can be seen, arising out of the trading operations of the East India Company.
'A document of unique interest it is a picture of Europe at a most
critical moment of its history, when the Continent was overwhelmed
by misery, disease and unrest. A cool observer, without prejudice
or excitement Tafur noted the symptoms of decay.' Sunday Times.
First published in 1927. 'This diary is history' The Observer
First published in 1931.
As well as including Sherley's own account of his journey into
Persia in 1600, this valuable edition includes the main works
dealing with Anthony Sherley and his life. Original inaccessible
texts are reprinted in full and the critical bibliographical
introduction provides excellent guidance for the understanding of
the various sources (and their merits and limitations), and the
context in which Sherley's own account was composed.
First published in 1931. None of the manuscripts which have come
down to us represent the original form of Marco Polo's narrative,
but it is clear that certain texts are closer to the lost original
than others. Entrusted with the task of preparing a new Italian
edition of Marco Polo, Benedetto discovered many unknown
manuscripts. He carefully edited the most famous of the manuscripts
(the Geographic text) and collated it with the other best known
ones.
First published in 1926. Don Juan was a Persian Moslem who became a
Spanish Roman Catholic. His description of Persia and his account
of the wars waged by the Persians during the sixteenth century
considerably add to modern day knowledge of the history of the
period. The book describes the Safavi rule as first established,
and the system of government set up in the prime of Shah 'Abbas, as
well as being an account of the long journey from Isfahan to
Valladolid.
First published in 1931.
First published in 1932.
'Next year I’m going to be 80 years old. My car will be 20 years old. Together we'll be 100. We’re going to drive to London.' 'And what route are you going to take?' 'I have no idea. I think I’ll keep to the right.' When 80-year old Julia Albu calls in to her favourite radio show with a zany, half-baked idea, she has no idea that it will lead her to the adventure of a lifetime. From helping push a 30-year-old Toyota bakkie up a precipitous mountain pass in Malawi to being 'adopted' by the riotous ex-pat South African community in Dar es Salaam and being fed mildly hallucinogenic 'herbs' by her Ethiopian driver-guide, nothing deterred 80-year-old Julia Albu from her quest to drive through Africa from the Cape to Cairo. She and her 20-year-old Toyota Conquest, Tracy - a personality in her own right - travelled through 10 African countries, from South Africa to Egypt (and beyond). Julia was accompanied by a series of companions who added texture to her travels: three of her four grown-up children, her son-in-law, and at least one person who began as a complete stranger and ended up as a friend for life. Reminiscing about her long and interesting life along the way, and maintaining a bright and upbeat outlook regardless of the circumstances, Julia proves that you're never too old to tackle that bucket list.
Few corners of the earth still remain shrouded in secrecy and mystery. Few places are left where Western feet have never trod. Such a region -- of unknown allurements, of strange and savage desert dwellers, of extraordinary skyscraping cities rising like phantoms out of the sand, of shadeless glitter and thirst and wonderment -- is the Hadhramut ("in the presence of death") in southwestern Arabia. Norman Pearn risked his life to visit this unvisited Arabian wonderland, much of which is unmarked on any map, with odds of two thousand to one being laid against the possibility of his return. His remarkable and memorable travel commentary not only adds an important contribution to the romantic story of Arabia, it gives also the personal record of fascinating experiences and adventures while following in the steps of the Queen of Sheba who once ruled this land. Guided by instructions left to him by one of Lawrence of Arabia's lieutenants, Pearn found signal traces of Sheba's past -- the only queen in Arabian history.
'To read it is like seeing the scenes described' Evening
Standard
First published in 1928. |
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