This 1948 edition of this popular work, first published in 1844 presents an entertaining account of the author's Eastern travels. Ostensibly with a view to providing a suggested outline of a tour to the interested reader, the book's portrayal of the internal journey one takes when travelling is as important an aspect of the book's value as is the historical interest it provides.

1948 edition of this popular work, first published in 1844. It presents an entertaining account of the author's Eastern travels. Ostensibly with a view to providing a suggested outline of a tour to the interested reader, the book's portrayal of the internal journey one takes when travelling is as important an aspect of the book's value as is the historical interest it provides.

It took Kinglake seven years before he had finished crafting this `lively, brilliant and rather insolent tale. The physical details of the journey, undertaken in 1834 across the Balkan frontiers of the Ottoman Empire, through Constantinople, Smyrna, Cyprus into the Near eastern cities of Jerusalem, Cairo and Damascus, are never as significant as the conversations, chance encounters and attitudes of the author. Packed full of an infectious charm and a youthful delight at the world, it is above all things funny as it lampoons the pomposity of earnest, middle?aged travellers seeking to establish themselves as professional authorities.