Travel: A Literary History - Hardcover

Whitfield, Peter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1851243380 ISBN 13: 9781851243389

Publisher: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, 2012

Synopsis

Taking the form of fact-filled travelogues, stunt-writing spectaculars, or genre-blurring imaginative works, travel writing has never been more popular than it is today. But beyond the self-conscious literary artistry of today’s narratives lies a rich and well-documented history of travel writing, stretching back over several thousand years and incorporating the work of mariners and missionaries, diplomats and dilettantes alike.

From the ancient world to the present, Peter Whitfield offers the first broad survey to range over the whole history of travel writing, highlighting more than one hundred texts, including works by Marco Polo, T. E. Lawrence, Christopher Columbus, Daniel Defoe, Joseph Conrad, and Captain Cook. Whether their travels were merely for pleasure or the result of exploration, military occupation, or trade, the writers discussed here all sought to reimagine their surroundings and, through their writings, reinterpret them for the reader. Because of that personal, interpretive approach, Whitfield shows, their work inhabits a strange borderland between fact and fiction. Over time, as our travel objectives have changed, so too has the tone of travel writing, eschewing the traditional stance of cultural superiority in favor of a deeper sensitivity to other peoples and places. The book is rounded out by numerous illustrations from manuscripts and books of travel in the collection of the Bodleian Library. A world-class examination of a little-explored genre, Travel: A Literary History offers an accessible look at the history of travel writing that will make a great addition to any carry-on.

About this title

About the Author:

Peter Whitfield is the author of numerous books of history, poetry, and literary criticism, including Travel: A Literary History and Mapping Shakespeare’s World, both also published by the Bodleian Library.
 

Review:

“A wide-ranging and insightful addition to the literature of travel.”

(Colin Thubron, author of To a Mountain in Tibet)

“An important book which uncovers the history of travel writing before we learned to call it travel writing.”—Condé Nast Traveller

(Condé Nast Traveller)

This is a book which every serious reader of travel books will find absorbing; It is probably the most thoughtful study of the subject since Paul Fussell's Abroad in 1980.
(Times Literary Supplement 2012-07-04)

About this edition

• Publisher: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1851243380
• ISBN 13: 9781851243389
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 303