Phil Druker/ Department of English/ UI

 

Travel Writing History: an abbreviated time line. 

(Adapted from The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing, P. Hulme and T. Youngs, eds. [Cambridge University Press, 2002] and Travel Writing: the Self and the World. Casey Blanton. [Routledge, 2002])

 

8th Century BC

Homer. The Odyssey

4th Century BC

Herodotus. The Histories

400 CE

Egeria. Peregrinatio (letters to nuns about a trip to the Holy Land)

1296 (1500 in English)

Maro Polo. The Travels

1596

Walter Ralegh.  The Discoverie of the Large, Rich and Bewiful Empyre of Guiana with a relation of the great and Golden cities of Manoa.

1625

John Norden. England, An Intended Guyde for English Travaillers

1628

Francis Drake. The world Encompassed

1636

Henry Blount. Voyage in the Levant.

1670

Richard Lassels.  An Italian Voyage, Or, A Compleat Journey Through Italy

1681

Robert Knox. An Historical Relation of Ceylon

1684

Alexandre Exquemelin. The Bucaniers of America

1693

William Dampier. A New Voyage Round the World

1716

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Embassy Letters

1724

Daniel Defoe. A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain.

1734

Voltaire. Letters on the English

1749

Henry Fielding. Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon

1775

Samuel Johnson. A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland

1777

Capt. James Cook.  A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World

1786

James Boswell. The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides

1817

Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley.  History of a Six Weeks’ Tour

1820

William Scoresby. An Account of the Artic Regions

1826

William Hazlitt. Notes of a Journey Through Italy and France

1830s

First books about mountain climbing

1831

Mary Prince. The History of a West Indian Slave

1839

Charles Darwin. The Voyage of the HMS Beagle

1849

Richard Dana. Two Years Before the Mast   <<

1849

Henry David Thoreau. A Week on the Concord and Merrimak

1842

Charles Dickens. American Notes

1846

Herman Melville. Typee

1849

Francis Parkman. The Oregon Trail

1859

Anthony Trollope. The West Indies and the Spanish Main

1869

Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad

1871

Clarence King. Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada

1874

John Wesley Powell. Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons

1878

Henry M. Stanley. Through the Dark Continent

1878

Robert Lewis Stevenson. Travels with a Donkey

1880

Isabella Bird. Unbeaten Tracks in Japan

1884

Henry James. A Little Tour in France

1894

John Muir.  The Mountains of California  <<

1897

Mary Kingsley. Travels in West Africa

1908

Jack London. The Cruise of the Snark

1911

Gertrude Bell. Amurath to Amurath

1916

D.H. Lawrence. Twilight in Italy

1926

Victory Sackville-West. Passenger to Tehran

1927

Alexander David Neel. My Journey to Llasa   <<

1930

Evelyn Waugh. Labels

1934

Aldous Huxley. Beyond the Mexique Bay

1934

George Orwell. Burmese Days

1935

Freya Stark.  The Valleys of the Assassins

1935

T.E. Lawrence. The Seven Pillars of Wisdom

1939

Graham Greene. The Lawless Roads

1948

 John Steinbeck. A Russian Journey (also Travels with Charley, 1961)

1950

Thor Heyerdahl. Kon-Tiki

1957

Jack Kerouac. On the Road

1957

Paul Bowles. Their Heads are Green and Their Hands are Blue

1964

V.S. Naipaul.  An Area of Darkness < read anything by Naipaul

1965

Dervla Mruphy. Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle

1966

Eric Newby. Slowly down the Ganges

1966

Joan Didion. Slouching Towrads Bethlehem

1974

 Robert Pirsig. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

1975

Paul Theroux. The Great Bazaar

1976

Bruce Chatwin. In Patagonia

1978

Peter Matthiessen. The Snow Leopard

1981

Jonathan Raban.  Old Glory: An American Voyage (also A Passage to Juneau)

1982

William Least Heat-Moon. Blue Highways

1986

Barry Lopaz. Artic Dreams

1987

Salman Rushdie. The Jaguar Smile

1988

 Pico Iyer. Video Night in Kathmandu (also The Lady and the Monk 1991,

1995

Lovell, Jim; Kluger, Jeffrey.  Apollo 13: Lost Moon.

1998

Jan Morris. Nothing to Declare

1999

Jon Krakauer. Into Thin Air