Returning from the horrors of World War I James Hall and Charles Nordhoff follow a dream to tour the South Pacific. They later co authored “Mutiny on the Bounty”. This is a love story. A travelogue and an adventure rolled into one. This book just went into the public domain, so enjoy an early 20th Century look at paradise. (Summary by Mike Vendetti)...

Travel, Adventure

The Desert by John Charles Van Dyke, published in 1901, is a lush, poetic description of the natural beauty of the American Southwest. What land can equal the desert with its wide plains, its grim mountains, and its expanding canopy of sky! Van Dyke, a cultivated art historian, saw sublimity in the desert's lonely desolation, which previous generations had perceived only as a wasteland, and his book has a conservationist flavor which seems distinctly modern. The deserts should never be reclaimed, he writes. They are the breathing spaces of the west and should be preserved for ever. The changing colors of the sky, hills, and sand impress Van Dyke, as do the mirages. He celebrates the long overlooked commonplace things of nature-- cactus and grease wood, desert animals, and winged life, the birds and insects. His writing has a philosophical undertone. Not in vain these wastes of sand ... simply because they are beautiful in themselves and good to look upon whether they be life or death. Anyone who views with equal awe fiery sunrises and weeds growing out of pavement cracks will enjoy this reading of Van Dyke's The Desert. (Summary by ...

Nature, Travel

After the bizarre textual antics of Tristram Shandy, this book would seem to require a literary health warning. Sure enough, it opens in mid-conversation upon a subject never explained; meanders after a fashion through a hundred pages, then fizzles out in mid-sentence - so, a plotless novel lacking a beginning, a middle or an end. Let us say: an exercise in the infinitely comic. There is not a secret so aiding to the progress of sociality, as to get master of this short hand, and to be quick in rendering the several turns of looks and limbs with all their inflections and delineations, into plain words. Sterne calls his fine sensitivity to body language (as we now term it) translation. Much of the pleasure to be had from this wonderfully engaging book comes from his unmatched ability to extract random details from the chaos of experience to create comic turns imbued with Feeling. His Parson Yorick is the Sentimental Traveller: certainly a Man of Feeling, but one in whom Nature has so wove her web of kindness, that some threads of love and desire are entangled with the piece... (Summary by Martin Geeson)...

Travel, Fiction

The Stones of Venice is a three-volume treatise on Venetian art and architecture by English art historian John Ruskin, first published from 1851 to 1853. Intending to prove how the architecture in Venice exemplified the principles he discussed in his earlier work, The Seven Lamps of Architecture, Ruskin examined the city in detail, describing for example over eighty churches. He discusses architecture of Venice's Byzantine, Gothic and Renaissance periods, and provides a general history of the city as well. The book aroused considerable interest in Victorian Britain and beyond. The chapter The Nature of Gothic (from volume 2) was admired by William Morris, who published it separately in an edition which is in itself an example of Gothic revival. It inspired Marcel Proust; the narrator of the Recherche visits Venice with his mother in a state of enthusiasm for Ruskin. The Stones of Venice is considered one of the most influential books of the 19th century. (Summary adapted from the Wikipedia by Leni)...

Art, Travel

Toeristisch verslag van een reis naar Canada en Alaska, in 1892 gepubliceerd in het tijdschrift De Aarde en haar volken. We gaan samen met de anonieme, Europese schrijver in Frankrijk aan boord van een schip met bestemming New-York. Daar aangekomen, reizen we direct door naar Montreal. In deze Oost-Canadese stad begint een lange tocht per trein - helemaal naar de Canadese west-kust - via de nog maar enkele jaren daarvoor aangelegde Canada-Pacific-lijn. Deze voert langs een overvloed aan meren en rivieren, in opkomst zijnde steden en adembenemende bergtoppen en gletschers. Aangekomen in de west-Canadese stad Victoria, neemt de schrijver ons mee aan boord van stoomboot 'The Queen' voor een toeristische tocht naar Alaska. Hij verhaalt van de prachtige ijsbergen, fjorden, gletschers en bossen welke we onderweg tegenkomen, van de geschiedenis van Alaska en van de kleurrijke plaatselijke bevolking. De Pyramide-haven, op 59° N.B., is de meest noordelijke plaats die wordt aangedaan. Daarna ondernemen we de terugtocht. (inleiding door kattekliek)...

History, Travel

Schetsen uit Amerika, een Nederlandse vertaling van American Notes (vertaler onbekend), is een reisverslag van Charles Dickens waarin hij zijn eerste bezoek aan de Verenigde Staten beschreef. Deze reis vond plaats in 1842 en zijn verblijf duurde zes maanden, van januari tot en met juni. Hij werd vergezeld door zijn vrouw Catherine. Na een zware overtocht op het overvolle schip Britannia van de Cunard Line kwam hij aan in Boston, waar hij, als reeds internationaal gevierd schrijver, een warm welkom kreeg. Dickens bereisde vervolgens voornamelijk de oostkust en het gebied van de Grote Meren. Ook bezocht hij president John Tyler in het Witte Huis. Dickens steekt zijn bewondering voor de Amerikaanse vorm van democratie niet onder stoelen of banken. Niettemin blijkt er sprake van een haat-liefde verhouding. Hij maakte een groot aantal kritische en zure opmerkingen, niet in de laatste plaats over het onderwerp auteursrechten. Zijn werken werden in Amerika volop gelezen, maar aangezien er geen internationale overeenkomst bestond op het gebied van copyright, verschenen zijn boeken in niet-geautoriseerde vorm en ontving de schrijver hiervoor...

Memoirs, Travel

This is a collection of essays, verbal sketches, and stories by Washington Irving. Irving lived at the Alhambra Palace while writing some of the material for his book. In 1828, Washington Irving traveled from Madrid, where he had been staying, to Granada, Spain. At first sight, he described it as a most picturesque and beautiful city, situated in one of the loveliest landscapes that I have ever seen. He immediately asked the then-governor of the historic Alhambra Palace as well as the archbishop of Granada for access to the palace, which was granted because of Irving's celebrity status. Aided by a 35-year old guide named Mateo Ximenes, Irving was inspired by his experience to write Tales of the Alhambra. Throughout his trip, he filled his notebooks and journals with descriptions and observations though he did not believe his writing would ever do it justice. He wrote, How unworthy is my scribbling of the place. A commemorative plaque in Spanish at the Alhambra reads, Washington Irving wrote his Tales of Alhambra in these rooms in 1829. The book was instrumental in reintroducing the Alhambra to Western audiences. (Summary by Wikipedi...

Travel, Art, History, Essay/Short nonfiction

In contrast to Scott's South Pole expedition, Amundsen's expedition benefited from good equipment, appropriate clothing, and a fundamentally different primary task (Amundsen did no surveying on his route south and is known to have taken only two photographs) Amundsen had a better understanding of dogs and their handling, and he used of skis more effectively. He pioneered an entirely new route to the Pole and they returned. In Amundsen's own words: Victory awaits him who has everything in order -- luck, people call it. Defeat is certain for him who has neglected to take the necessary precautions in time; this is called bad luck. Short accounts by other members of the party are appended. (Summary adapted from Wikipedia by Karen Merline.)...

Travel, Science, History

Travel with Little Lucy around the globe and learn a little geography and small bits about other cultures.(Summary by Laura Caldwell)

Children, Travel, Instruction

Following the Equator (American English title) or More Tramps Abroad (English title) is a non-fiction travelogue published by American author Mark Twain in 1897. Twain was practically bankrupt in 1894 due to a failed investment into a revolutionary typesetting machine. In an attempt to extricate himself from debt of $100,000 (equivalent of about $2 million in 2005) he undertook a tour of the British Empire in 1895, a route chosen to provide numerous opportunities for lectures in the English language. In Following the Equator, an account of that travel published in 1897, the author unmasks and criticizes racism, imperialism and missionary zeal in observations woven into the narrative with classical Twain wit. Of particular interest, historically, are Twain's references to Cecil Rhodes in Australia and South Africa, the in-depth description of Thugs and Thuggee in India and the Boer War period and diamonds in South Africa. (Summary by Wikipedia and John Greenman)...

Travel, Humor

As a girl, Lady Duff-Gordon was noted both for her beauty and intelligence. As an author, she is most famous for this collection of letters from Egypt. Lady Duff-Gordon had tuberculosis, and went to Egypt for her health. This collection of her personal letters to her mother and her husband. By all accounts everyone loved her, and the letters are very personal in style and content. The letters are as much an introduction to her person as a record of her life on the Upper Nile....

Memoirs, Travel

This is Part Two of Four of the incredible story of the actions of the men and women of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, Canada's contribution to the Great War 1914-1919, during the last 100 days of the First World War. After nearly 4 years of stalemate (trench warfare) the Allied Forces planned to break through the German Hindenburg Line and then push the enemy from their defensive positions. You will follow the CEF as they take Amiens (Part I - complete), Arras (Part II - this project), Cambrai (Part III) and then the pursuit of the German Forces from Valenciennes to Mons (Part IV) in Belgium, the same place where the war began on August 4, 1914 on November 11, 1918. (Summary by Richard Laughton.)...

History, Travel

This book contains the record of a few of the many happy days and novel experiences which I have had in the wilds. For more than twenty years it has been my good fortune to live most of the time with nature, on the mountains of the West. I have made scores of long exploring rambles over the mountains in every season of the year, a nature-lover charmed with the birds and the trees. On my later excursions I have gone alone and without firearms. During three succeeding winters, in which I was a Government Experiment Officer and called the State Snow Observer, I scaled many of the higher peaks of the Rockies and made many studies on the upper slopes of these mountains. (Summary from the Preface of Wild Life on the Rockies )...

Nature, Travel, Biography

Having, on his first voyage, discovered Australia, Cook still had to contend with those who maintained that the Terra Australians Incognita (the unknown Southern Continent) was a reality. To finally settle the issue, the British Admiralty sent Cook out again into the vast Southern Ocean with two sailing ships totalling only about 800 tons. Listen as Cook, equipped with one of the first chronometers, pushes his small vessel not merely into the Roaring Forties or the Furious Fifties but becomes the first explorer to penetrate the Antarctic Circle, reaching an incredible Latitude 71 degrees South, just failing to discover Antarctica. (Introduction by Shipley)...

Biography, Travel, History, Adventure, Sea stories

Few stories of shipwreck and survival can equal that of the 16th century Spaniard Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca who, cast ashore near present day (USA) Tampa Bay, Florida, in 1528, survived eight years of hand-to-mouth existence among the Indians of the South and Southwest, and who walked on foot across the plains to the Pacific Coast, arriving in Mexico in 1536. In 1542 he published an account of his adventures, and the present reading is based on Fanny Bandelier’s English translation of that text. Cabeza de Vaca, along with three other survivors, two Spaniards and a North African (Estévanico, a black slave) endured incredible hardships. Cabeza da Vaca was, himself, at first enslaved by the Indians, forced to dig roots with his bare hands for food. However, he soon showed powers of adaptation that allowed him to survive. He became a trader, bartering “seashells and cockles” from the coast for hides, red ochre, flint, and deer hair tassels from the inland tribes. “Trade suited me well,” he writes, “because it gave me liberty to go where I pleased.” The Indians “rejoiced greatly when seeing me and I would bring them what they needed, an...

History, Travel, Adventure, Memoirs

Het Journael ofte gedenckwaerdige beschrijvinghe is een scheepsjournaal opgetekend door de Hoornse schipper Willem Ysbrantsz Bontekoe, over zijn belevenissen in dienst van de Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC). Het werd voor het eerst gepubliceerd in 1646, en geeft een indrukwekkend beeld van de scheepvaart in die tijd. Het journaal beschrijft Bontekoe's reis van Texel naar Java in 1618, zijn reizen tussen de Indonesische eilanden en naar China in de daaropvolgende jaren, en uiteindelijk, in 1625, zijn terugreis naar Nederland. Die reizen worden gemarkeerd door vele avonturen en gevaren, onder andere het vergaan van Bontekoe's schip door een explosie, waarbij de schipbreukelingen bijna 2 weken in 2 kleine bootjes op open zee doorbrengen, schermutselingen met Chinezen als de VOC exclusieve handelsbetrekkingen met China probeert af te dwingen, en een verwoestende orkaan. Het populaire jeugdboek De scheepsjongens van Bontekoe (1924), van Johan Fabricius (1899-1981), dat in 2007 verfilmd is, is geinspireerd door het eerste deel van dit scheepsjournaal....

Travel, Sea stories, Memoirs

A possibly fictionalised account by the comic novelist Jerome K. Jerome of a trip to Germany that he undertook with a friend in order to see the famous Passion Play at Oberammergau. The journey takes in London, Dover, Ostend, Cologne, Munich, Oberau, Oberammergau and then back to London via Heidelberg. As one might expect from the author of 'Three Men in a Boat', much goes wrong along the way, including seasickness, strange food, stranger beds, misleading guidebooks, bewildering train timetables, and numerous cultural and linguistic misunderstandings. (Summary by Szindbad)...

Humor, Travel

Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821 – 1890) was an English explorer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, ethnologist, linguist, poet, hypnotist, fencer and diplomat. He was known for his travels and explorations within Asia and Africa as well as his extraordinary knowledge of languages and cultures. According to one count, he spoke 29 European, Asian, and African languages. Burton's best-known achievements include traveling in disguise to Mecca, The Book of One Thousand Nights and A Night, an unexpurgated translation of One Thousand and One Nights, bringing the Kama Sutra to publication in English, and journeying with John Hanning Speke as the first Europeans led by Africa's greatest explorer guide, Sidi Mubarak Bombay, utilizing route information by Indian and Omani merchants who traded in the region, to visit the Great Lakes of Africa in search of the source of the Nile. Burton extensively criticized colonial policies (to the detriment of his career) in his works and letters. He was a prolific and erudite author and wrote numerous books and scholarly articles about subjects including human behavior, travel, fencing, sexual prac...

Religion, Travel

Originally published in 1825 under the title: Sketches of New Brunswick : containing an account of the first settlement of the province, with a brief description of the country, climate, productions, inhabitants, government, rivers, towns, settlements, public institutions, trade, revenue, population, &c., by an inhabitant of the province. The value of this history is in the fact that it was written when the Province was still in its infancy. Although there had been a few small settlements established in New Brunswick prior to 1783, the main influx of settlers were Loyalists who chose to remove to the area from the United States following the American Revolution. (Summary from text with additions by Roger Melin)...

History, Travel

East by West: a Journey in the Recess is an account of British journalist Henry Lucy's travels across America and on to the Far East during the parliamentary recess in 1883. Lucy was one of the most influential journalists of his day and, as Toby M.P., a noted humorist in Punch magazine. His acute powers of observation and light touch make this a most engaging book. It is a fascinating insight into the Englishman's travels abroad within two decades of the American Civil War and the end of Japanese isolationism. This is the first of two volumes covering his journey with his wife. This first volume includes his travels in America and in Japan, including the Atlantic and Pacific crossings by steamer. Volume II, which I hope to record later, continues his experiences in Japan and India, returning home via Aden and the Suez Canal. (Introduction by Ruth Golding)...

Travel, Memoirs, History

Birdseye Views of Far Lands is an interesting, wholesome presentation of something that a keen-eyed, alert traveler with the faculty of making contrasts with all classes of people in all sorts of places, in such a sympathetic way as to win their esteem and confidence, has been able to pick up as he has roamed over the face of the earth for a quarter of a century. The book is not a geography, a history, a treatise on sociology or political economy. It is a Human Interest book which appeals to the reader who would like to go as the writer has gone and to see as the writer has seen the conformations of surface, the phenomena of nature and the human group that make up what we call a world. The reader finds facts indicating travel and study set forth in such vigorous, vivid style that the attention is held by a story while most valuable information is being obtained. The casual reader, the pupil in the public school and student in the high school, professional men and women, will all find the book at once highly interesting and instructive. In no other book with which I am acquainted can so much that is interesting be learned of the worl...

Travel

The expedition of Messrs. Lewis and Clarke, for exploring the river Missouri, and the best communication from that to the Pacific Ocean, has had all the success which could be expected. They have traced the Missouri nearly to its source; descended the Columbia to the Pacific Ocean, ascertained with accuracy the Geography, of that interesting communication across the continent; learned the character of the country, its commerce and inhabitants; and it is but justice to say that Messrs. Lewis and Clarke, and their brave companions, have, by this arduous service, deserved well of their country. This volume is the 1840 edition with woodcut images and an Indian vocabulary. They may be viewed by clicking on the text URL. (Summary in quotes by President Thomas Jefferson)...

History, Travel

The year is 1838. The scene is the dense Honduran forest along the Copán River. Two men, John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood, are about to rediscover Mayan civilization. Their guide, slashing through the rampant growth with his machete, leads them to a structure with steps up the side, shaped like a pyramid. Next they see a stone column, fourteen feet high, sculptured on the front with a portrait of a man, “solemn, stern and well fitted to excite terror,” covered on the sides with hieroglyphics, and with workmanship “equal to the finest monuments of the Egyptians.” Stephens records these discoveries and also his travels in Central America, where he had been sent by President Van Buren as special ambassador to the ill-fated Republic of Central America. The republic being engulfed in civil war when Stephens arrives in Guatemala, he finds himself dodging revolutionary armies while he hunts for a “legitimate government” to which to present his credentials. Catherwood, meanwhile, directs his immense artistic talent to illustrating views of Mayan architecture. Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan was a best...

Adventure, Travel, Art, History

Next to de Alexis de Tocquville's almost contemporary Democracy in America, Frances Trollope's work may be the most famous (or at least notorious) dissection of manners and morals of the United States. The work was a sensation on both sides of the Atlantic, and particularly in America, where Trollope was reviled as representing the worst of old world prejudices the new republic (though the criticism did nothing to hurt sales). Accompanied by a son and two daughters, Trollope lived in the United States from 1827 to 1831, spending most of her time in Cincinnati, where she had hoped, when joined by her husband, to open a large department store, which was also to be a place of entertainment and culture. She was, unfortunately, almost entirely ignorant of business practices, and habitually short of money, which her husband was in no position to make up. After leaving Cincinnati she traveled briefly in the eastern states, before returning to England. There is something of a happy ending; Domestic Manners was her first book, and such a success that she turned to writing, producing in her lifetime over a hundred books, which, though they ne...

Fiction, Travel

The book, also known as Darwin's Journal of Researches, is a vivid and exciting travel memoir as well as a detailed scientific field journal covering biology, geology, and anthropology that demonstrates Darwin's keen powers of observation, written at a time when Western Europeans were still discovering and exploring much of the rest of the world. Although Darwin revisited some areas during the expedition, for clarity the chapters of the book are ordered by reference to places and locations rather than chronologically. With hindsight, ideas which Darwin would later develop into his theory of evolution by natural selection are hinted at in his notes and in the book (Summary from Wikipedia)....

Science, Travel

The Germania (Latin: De Origine et situ Germanorum, literally The Origin and Situation of the Germans[1]), written by Gaius Cornelius Tacitus around 98, is an ethnographic work on the Germanic tribes outside the Roman Empire. Germania fits squarely within the tradition established by authors from Herodotus to Julius Caesar. Tacitus himself had already written a similar essay on the lands and tribes of Britannia in his Agricola. The Germania begins with a description of the lands, laws, and customs of the Germanic people; it then segues into descriptions of individual tribes, beginning with those dwelling closest to Roman lands and ending on the uttermost shores of the Baltic, among the amber-gathering Aesti, the primitive and savage Fenni, and the unknown tribes beyond them.Tacitus' descriptions of the Germanic character are at times favorable in contrast to the opinions of the Romans of his day. He holds the strict monogamy and chastity of Germanic marriage customs worthy of the highest praise, in contrast to what he saw as the vice and immorality rampant in Roman society of his day, and he admires their open hospitality, their sim...

History, Travel, Ancient Texts

Vizetelly, writing under the pseudonym J. Tyrwhitt Brooks, recalls an expedition to California he took between 1847-1848 . Originally, he planned to enlist as a surgeon for the US Army during the Mexican war, but conflicts had ended by the time he applied. In a quick change of plans, he joined a group of prospectors on their way to the newly found gold fields of California. While he might not find service in the military, his training as a physician made him a valuable addition to the ragtag team of explorers. His training as a physician gives us an exacting perspective of the events and people who struck out from more sedate routines to prospect gold in the Californian wilderness. However, he is unprepared to find a cure for the gold fever that has depopulated the surrounding towns. Only one member of the group, an experienced fur-trapper, is able to resist the lustrous lure of nuggets, flakes and gold richly deposited in the dusty desert. Like the others who have left jobs to prospect for gold, he learns how to live on the land and struggle through hardship away from the security of city life. His motley group of changing characte...

Memoirs, Travel

1862 Anna Leonowens accepted an offer made by the Siamese consul in Singapore, Tan Kim Ching, to teach the wives and children of Mongkut, king of Siam. The king wished to give his 39 wives and concubines and 82 children a modern Western education on scientific secular lines, which earlier missionaries' wives had not provided. Leonowens sent her daughter Avis to school in England, and took her son Louis with her to Bangkok. She succeeded Dan Beach Bradley, an American missionary, as teacher to the Siamese court. Leonowens served at court until 1867, a period of nearly six years, first as a teacher and later as language secretary for the king. Although her position carried great respect and even a degree of political influence, she did not find the terms and conditions of her employment to her satisfaction, and came to be regarded by the king himself as a rather difficult woman. In 1868 Leonowens was on leave for her health in England and had been negotiating a return to the court on better terms when Mongkut fell ill and died. The king mentioned Leonowens and her son in his will, though they did not receive the legacy. The new monarc...

Memoirs, Travel

Edward Granville Browne (1862 – 1926), born in Stouts Hill, Uley, Gloucestershire, England, was a British orientalist who published numerous articles and books of academic value, mainly in the areas of history and literature. His works are respected for their scholarship, uniqueness, and style. He published in areas which few other Western scholars had explored to any sufficient degree. He used a language and style that showed high respect for everybody, even toward those he personally did not view in positive light. In A Year Amongst the Persians (1893) he wrote a sympathetic portrayal of a Persian society which few Westerners had ever seen, including a frank account of the effects of opium. It did not attract the attention it deserved at the time of its initial publication, but after his death in 1926 it was reprinted and became a classic in English travel literature. A Year Amongst the Persians includes moving accounts of the Bahá’í community in Iran. Concerning his meetings with the Bahá’ís of Iran, Browne writes: “The memory of those assemblies can never fade from my mind; the recollection of those faces and those tones no time...

Travel, Religion, Philosophy