San Antonio College Library

"When it comes to holidays, some talk about "seeing the world," others about "getting away from it all." These two basic philosophies of travel are elaborated delightfully in Orvar Lofgren's investigation of "elsewhereness" as a human pursuit. Whether we set out in search of a mountainscape that will take our breath away, artifacts of the past to enrich our minds, the purest sand on the most unspoiled beach, or a summer place to know and cherish,...

In this lively compendium, travelers of the armchair variety will find assembled the best travel tales from cultures around the world and through the centuries. Focusing on journeys for purposes of trade, diplomacy, religion, or pleasure, the encyclopedia surveys the persons, animals, events, places, and institutions associated with travel legend from antiquity to 1900. With an informative introduction, nearly 200 cross referenced A-to-Z entries,...

"The only book of its kind in any language, Travel in the Ancient World offers a comprehensive review of ancient travel, from the first recorded voyages to Old Kingdom Egypt through Greek and Roman times to the Christian pilgrimages of the fourth century and later. Lionel Casson tells who traveled and why (government business, trade, health, vacationing, tourism). He describes the ships, carts, carriages, and other means of conveyance; roads and waterways;...

In this rich exploration of the era of the Grand Tour, contributors from the fields of history, art history, literary history and theory, science history, and anthropology investigate the experiences of travellers and their ways of understanding and representing their encounters with the foreign. From the beginning of the seventeenth century through to the early decades of the nineteenth century, the practice of the Grand Tour supplied a crucial point...

Romantic Writing and Pedestrian Travel is an exploration of the relationship between walking and writing. It argues that much Romantic literature has its source in a remarkable transformation in the history of travel: the rapid rise of pedestrian touring and the popularisation of recreational walking in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Robin Jarvis here reconstructs the scene of walking, both in Britain and on the Continent, in the 1790s,...

"Focusing on lyric poetry, Mastery's End looks at important, yet neglected, issues of subjectivity in post-World War II travel literature. Jeffrey Gray departs from related studies in two regards: nearly all recent scholarly books on the literature of travel have dealt with pre-twentieth-century periods, and all are concerned with narrative genres. Further, Gray questions whether the postcolonial theoretical model of travel as mastery, hegemony, and...

As the first extensive survey of contemporary travel writing, Tourists with Typewriters offers a series of challenging and provocative critical insights into a wide range of travel narratives written in English after the Second World War. The book focuses in particular on contemporary travel writers such as Jan Morris, Peter Matthiessen, V.S. Naipaul, Barry Lopez, Mary Morris, Paul Theroux, Peter Mayle, and the late Bruce Chatwin. It examines some...