Perspectives on Travel Writing

Ranging from the early modern to the postcolonial, and dealing mainly with encounters in Europe, the Americas and the Middle East, Perspectives on Travel Writing is a collection of new essays by international scholars that examines some of the various contexts of travel writing, as well as its generic characteristics. Contributions examine the similarities between autobiography and memoir, fiction, and travel writing, and attempt to define travel writing as a genre. Utilising a variety of approaches, the essays display a shared concern with what travel writing does and how it does it. The effects of encounter and border-crossing on gender, 'race', and national identity are considered throughout. The collection begins with a review of some of the problems and issues facing the scholar of travel writing and moves on to a detailed discussion of the qualities of travel writing and its related forms. It then presents in chronological order a number of case studies, before closing with a critical discussion of approaches to the subject. An essay collection with broad historical and geographical coverage, this volume should appeal to students and researchers of travel and travel-related literatures from across the Humanities.

Contents: Introduction, Glenn Hooper and Tim Youngs; Defining travel: on the travel book, travel writing, and terminology, Jan Borm; 'As mannerly and civil as any of Europe': early modern travel writing and the exploration of the English self, Helga Quadflieg; 'Not absolutely a native, nor entirely a stranger': the Journeys of Anne Grant, Betty Hagglund; The Saxon in Ireland: John Hervey Ashworth on the emigrant trail, Glenn Hooper; Animals as figures of otherness in Victorian narratives of travel in Brittany, 1840-95, Jean-Yves Le Disez; 'The silent language of the face': the perception of indigenous difference in travel writing about the Caribbean, Peter Hulme; Night train to Belo Horizonte: South American travels, Erdmute Wenzel White; Between gender and genre: the travels of Estella Canziani, Loredana Polezzi; Varieties of nostalgia in contemporary travel writing, Patrick Holland and Graham Huggan; Mediaeval travel in postcolonial times: Amitav Ghosh's In an Antique Land, Padmini Mongia; Where are we going? Cross-border approaches to travel writing, Tim Youngs; Select Bibliography; Index.