The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing

This book is an introduction to travel writing in English between 1500 and the present.

The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing brings together specialists from anthropology, history, literary and cultural studies to offer a broad and vibrant introduction to travel writing in English between 1500 and the present. This comprehensive introduction to the subject features specially commissioned contributions, including six essays surveying the period's travel writing; a further six focusing on geographical areas of particular interest - Arabia, the Amazon, Tahiti, Ireland, Calcutta, the Congo and California; and three final chapters analysing some of the theoretical and cultural dimensions to this enigmatic and influential genre of writing. Several invaluable tools are also provided, including an extensive list of further reading, and a detailed five-hundred year chronology listing important events and publications. This volume will be of interest to teachers and students alike.

Introduction Peter Hulme and Tim Youngs; 1. Stirrings and searchings (1500–1720) William H. Sherman; 2. The Grand Tour and after James Buzard; 3. Exploration and travel outside Europe (1720–1914) Roy Bridges; 4. Modernism and travel (1880–1940) Helen Carr; 5. Travelling to write (1940–2000) Peter Hulme; 6. The Middle East/Arabia: 'the cradle of Islam' Billie Melman; 7. South America/Amazonia: the forest of marvels Neil L. Whitehead; 8. The Pacific/Tahiti: Queen of the south sea isles Rod Edmond; 9. Africa/the Congo: the politics of darkness Tim Youngs; 10. The Isles/Ireland: the wilder shore Glenn Hooper; 11. India/Calcutta: city of palaces and dreadful night Kate Teltscher; 12. The west/California: sites of the future Bruce Greenfield; 13. Travel writing and gender Susan Bassnett; 14. Travel writing and ethnography Joan Pau Rubiés; 15. Travel writing and its theory Mary Baine Campbell; Chronology; Further reading.

This book is an introduction to travel writing in English between 1500 and the present. Six essays survey the period's travel writing; six more focus on areas of particular interest; while the final three analyse the theoretical and cultural dimensions to this enigmatic and influential genre of writing.

Peter Hulme is Professor in Literature, University of Essex. He is the author of Colonial Encounters: Europe and the Native Caribbean, 1492–1797 (1986) and Remnants of Conquests: The Island Caribs and their Visitors, 1877–1998 (2000).
Tim Youngs is Reader in English and American Studies at Nottingham Trent University. He is the author of Travelers in Africa: British Travelogues 1850–1900 (1994), and the editor of Writing and Race (1997).