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In "Little Travels and Roadside Sketches," William Makepeace Thackeray presents a collection of travel sketches that capture the essence of 19th-century England through poignant observation and wit. Composed of a series of essays written during his journeys, this work is notable for its rich descriptive style and engaging narrative voice. Thackerays ability to blend humor, social critique, and personal reflection invites readers into a vivid portrayal of landscapes, cultures, and the diverse human experiences found along the road. Through these writings, he establishes a unique intersection of art and reality, reflecting the burgeoning travel literature of his time. Thackeray, best known for his satirical novels such as "Vanity Fair," also thrived in the genre of travel writing, which allowed him to express both his observational acuity and his critique of social norms. His travels across Europe and within Britain deeply influenced his perception of society, providing him with a rich tapestry of experiences that informed his keen insights into human nature. ThackerayAos style is characterized by a blend of irony and earnestness, which adds layers to his reflections on the places and people he encounters. Readers seeking an engaging exploration of Victorian society through vibrant sketches will find "Little Travels and Roadside Sketches" to be a revelatory work. ThackerayAos keen observation and witty commentary make this collection not only enlightening but also entertaining. This book remains a timeless journey worth embarking on for anyone interested in travel, culture, or the intricacies of human interaction.

Captain Scotts expedition to the Antarctic, the most famous story of exploration in the world, played out on the great ice stage in the south. Oriana Wilson, wife of Scotts best friend and fellow explorer Dr Edward Wilson, was watching from the wings. She is the missing link between many of the notable polar names of the time and was allowed into a mans world at a time when the British suffragettes were marching. Oriana is the lens through which their secrets are revealed. What really happened both in the Antarctic and at home? Why did Scotts Terra Nova expedition nearly end in mutiny before it had even begun? Were the explorers diaries as heroic as they appeared to be? Only Oriana can tell.She began as a dutiful housewife but emerged as a scientist and collector in her own right, and was the first white woman to venture into the jungles of Darwin, Australia. Edward Wilson named Oriana Ridge, a little-known piece of Antarctica, after her on their tenth wedding anniversary. Oriana Wilson has been quiet for a century, but this biography gives her a voice and provides a unique insight into the early twentieth century through her clear, blue iceberg eyes.

It is believed that this book, with its true but none the less stirring adventures, will be of much interest to the general public, as well as gratifying to the many warm friends of Lieutenant Lockwood. It will likewise correct any erroneous impressions which may have arisen from the publication of garbled extracts from the official journals kept by the different members of the Greely party and, by order of the War Department, laid open to the public. By this order, Lockwoods journal and those of others became public property, and hence any reference to them in advance of their official publication is allowable.The few pages devoted to the early life can not be expected to especially interest the general public, but will gratify Lieutenant Lockwoods friends. They are here produced to give them permanency, and to show his sterling character.No attempt is here made to give a history of the Expedition, and only so much of Lockwoods journal is produced as shows his connection therewith. The voyage to Lady Franklin Bay is given more in detail, 2 as it presents a lively picture of an interesting people not much known, and as it exhibits the buoyant spirits with which he entered upon the work, before dissensions in camp had checked them, though without marring his faithfulness and energy. The important part he had in the enterprise, his zeal, energy, and loyalty to his chief and to the cause, all are fully set forth, and will be more clearly seen when the more elaborate history of the Expedition shall be published by Lieutenant Greely, as will shortly be done.Although the journal has been freely used, its language and style have not been closely followed, except in those parts quoted which refer to Lockwoods sentiments and feelings. The deep pathos of these could be expressed as well in no other words.

A Journall of Three thousand and Three hundred Miles within the main Land of AMERICA.Wherin is set forth his Voyage from Spain to St. John de Ulhua; and from thence to Xalappa, to Tlaxcallan, the City of Angeles, and forward to Mexico; With the description of that great City, as it was in former times, and also at this present.Likewise his Journey from Mexico through the Provinces of Guaxaca, Chiapa, Guatemala, Vera Paz, Truxillo, Comayagua; with his abode Twelve years about Guatemala, and especially in the Indian-towns of Mixco, Pinola, Petapa, Amatitlan.As also his strange and wonderfull Conversion, and Calling from those remote Parts to his Native Countrey.With his return through the Province of Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, to Nicoya, Panama, Portobelo, Cartagena, and Havana, with divers occurrents and dangers that did befal in the said Journey.ALSO,A New and exact Discovery of the Spanish Navigation to those Parts; And of their Dominions, Government, Religion, Forts, Castles, Ports, Havens, Commodities, fashions, behaviour of Spaniards, Priests and Friers, Blackmores, Mulattos, Mestisos, Indians; and of their Feasts and Solemnities.With a Grammar, or some few Rudiments of the Indian Tongue, called, Poconchi, or Pocoman.

The Uncommercial Traveller is a collection of literary sketches and reminiscences written by Charles Dickens.In 1859 Dickens founded a new journal called All the Year Round and the Uncommercial Traveller articles would be among his main contributions. He seems to have chosen the title and persona of the Uncommercial Traveller as a result of a speech he gave on the 22 December 1859 to the Commercial Travellers School London in his role as honorary chairman and treasurer. The persona sits well with a writer who liked to travel, not only as a tourist, but also to research and report what he found; visiting Europe, America and giving book readings throughout Britain.Dickens began by writing seventeen episodes, which were printed in All the Year Round between 28 January and 13 October 1860 and these were published in a single edition in 1861. He sporadically produced eleven more articles between 1863-65 and an expanded edition of the work was printed in 1866. Once more he returned to the persona with some more sketches written 1868-69 and a complete set of these articles was published posthumously in 1875.

Among the many books about the Polar regions there is none quite like this, dealing with the gradual progress of exploration towards the north along the different areas of advance within the Arctic Circle.The subject is always interesting, for few regions have been the scene of more persistent effort and exciting adventure and unexpected gains from the unknown, particularly in the earlier days when the endeavour to find the northern passages to the east and west led to the beginning of our foreign trade.It is often asked, "What is the use of further Arctic discovery?" No one knows. Nor did any one know the use of most discoveries before they were made.When Eric landed in Greenland he was not in search of cryolite for aluminium. When Cabral sailed to Porto Seguro he knew nothing of the incandescent gas-mantle. When Oersted looped the live wire round the magnetic needle he was not bent on founding electrical engineering. And when Linnus noticed the sleep of plants he had no intention of providing a substitute for a clock in high latitudes where, though vithe sunshine is continuous during the summer, the plants within the Circle sleep as in the night time, their sleeping leaves telling the traveller that midnight is at hand.Men have made up their minds to reach the Pole, and thither they will go. What they will find when they get there may not promise to be much, but what they have found round about it has been enough to influence considerably the history of the world.W. J. G.

A tour round the South American continent, which was completed in so short a time as five months, may not appear to deserve any special record; yet I am led to hope that this little book may serve to induce others to visit a region so abounding in sources of enjoyment and interest. There is no part of the world where, in the same short space of time, a traveller can view so many varied and impressive aspects of nature; while he whose attention is mainly given to the progress and development of the social condition of mankind will find in the condition of the numerous states of the continent, and the manners and habits of the many different races that inhabit it, abundant material to engage his attention and excite his interest.Although, as the title implies, the aim of my journey was mainly directed to the new aspects of nature, organic and inorganic, which South America superabundantly presents to the stranger, I have not thought it without interest to give in these pages theviii impressions as to the social and political condition of the different regions which I visited, suggested to an unprejudiced visitor by the daily incidents of a travellers life.Those who may be tempted to undertake a tour in South America will find that by a judicious choice of route, according to the season selected for travelling, they may visit all the accessible parts of the continent with perfect ease, and with no more risk of injury to health, or of bodily discomfort, than they incur in a summer excursion in Europe. The chief precaution to be observed is to make the visit to Brazil fall in the cool and dry season, extending from mid-May to September. It may also be well to mention that, while the cost of passage and expenses on board, for a journey of about 18,400 miles by sea, somewhat exceeded 170, my expenses during about ten weeks on land, without any attempt at economy, did not exceed 100.

When Mark Twain was seventeen he went back to the home of his boyhood resolved to become a pilot on the Mississippi. How he learnt the river he has told us in Life on the Mississippi, wherein his adventures, his experiences, and his impressions while he was a cub-pilot are recorded with a combination of precise veracity and abundant humor which makes the earlier chapters of that marvelous book a most masterly fragment of autobiography. The life of a pilot was full of interest and excitement and opportunity, and what young Clemens saw and heard and divined during the years when he was going up and down the mighty river we may read in these pages.

History A Of Six Weeks Tour through a part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland; with Letters Descriptive of a Sail Round the Lake of Geneva and of the Glaciers of Chamouni is a travel narrative, that Mary Shelley has published in 1817. It describes two journeys that Shelley undertook with Percy Bysshe Shelley and her stepsister Claire. The first journey led them all across Europe in 1814, the second one to the Lake Geneva two years later.

The volume on Cape Cod is deliberately formless in style, being interspersed with quotations from old histories and records of merely local interest; it abounds, however, in its authors dry sententious humour and sparkling paradoxes. It has been said that Cape Cod is in one sense the most human of Thoreau s books, and has more tenderness of tone than Waldeii) as if the sea had exercised a mellowing influence on his mind. Especially good are the Dutch pictures of the Wellfleet oysterman and the " sea-captains" of Provincetown. "It is worth the while," says Thoreau, " to talk with one whom his neighbours address as Captain, though his craft may have long been sunk, and he may be holding by his teeth to the shattered mast of a pipe alone, and only gets half-seas-over in a figurative sense now. He is pretty sure to vindicate his right to the title at last can tell one or two good stories at least." In Cape Cod the experiences of several visits are condensed into one account.

In 1849, Thoreau published his first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. The actual voyage was performed by the two brothers Henry and John in the late summer of 1839 in a boat of their own making, "painted green below with a border of blue, with reference to the two elements in which it was to spend its existence." During his Walden retirement, Thoreau worked over the original record of his pleasant outing, expanding it greatly by the inclusion of very various material, and had it published at his own risk by Monroe in 1849. It was the year of the Argonauts, of the gold-rush to California, and such literary treasure as the odd book contained was not much regarded. Though favourably reviewed by Ripley and by Lowell, it did not please the public, and over seven hundred copies out of an impression of one thousand were thrown back on the authors hands. It is another of the paradoxes of Thoreaus career that since his death, this failure has been edited with almost benedictine care.

Excursions includes the posthumous travel-writing essays of the famous American author. In detail these are:Natural History Of Massachusetts.A Walk To Wachusett.The Landlord.A Winter Walk.Walking.Autumnal Tints.Wild Apples.Night And Moonlight.

In 1854, Thoreau published the book by which he will always be best known, Walden, or Life in the Woods. It is by far the deepest, richest, and most closely jointed of his books. It shows Thoreau at his best, and contains all that he had to say to the world. In fact, he is a man of one book, and that book is Walden. In plan, it is open to the same objection as "A Week", and might almost plead guilty to the charge of obtaining a hearing under false pretences. "Life in the woods" suggests the atmosphere of As You Like It and the Robin Hood ballads, but not moralizings on economy and the duty of being yourself. The reader who takes up the book with the idea that he is going to enjoy another Robinson Crusoe will not be pleased to find that every now and then he will have to listen to a lay sermon, or a lyceum lecture.

In 1849, Thoreau published his first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. The actual voyage was performed by the two brothers Henry and John in the late summer of 1839 in a boat of their own making, "painted green below with a border of blue, with reference to the two elements in which it was to spend its existence." During his Walden retirement, Thoreau worked over the original record of his pleasant outing, expanding it greatly by the inclusion of very various material, and had it published at his own risk by Monroe in 1849. It was the year of the Argonauts, of the gold-rush to California, and such literary treasure as the odd book contained was not much regarded. Though favourably reviewed by Ripley and by Lowell, it did not please the public, and over seven hundred copies out of an impression of one thousand were thrown back on the authors hands. It is another of the paradoxes of Thoreaus career that since his death, this failure has been edited with almost benedictine care.

A happy and interesting jumble is this book of Mark Twains. It is like a lucky-bag at a fair. In his zigzag journey around the world, the humorist has made a collection of odds and ends of fun, philosophy, and fantastic description, such as has never been gathered in the pages of a single book, and any one dipping in at random is sure of a prize. The heterogeneous mass has some pretense of being loosely strung together, but it is on a line as long as the Equator itself. It is a travelers miscellany a globe-trotters hotch-potch a sociologists cabinet of specimens, all bearing the quaint labelings of the creator of Puddnhead Wilson. Here is a rare bit of humor surreptitiously picked up in a New Zealand drawing-room; there a sample fragment of a life-tragedy which the trophy-hunter knocked off Molokai. This division of the cabinet contains an incident from the stage-door of a New York theater; that, next to it, a unique string of anecdotes of tiger-hunting in Baroda. And according to the labels, many of the specimens were picked up in very unexpected places; as for instance, the yarn about Barnum which the collector found in Delagoa bay. But wherever found, or however incongruously grouped, this cabinet of odds and ends of life is one of the most interesting and unique collections ever made by a traveler.

When Mark Twain was seventeen he went back to the home of his boyhood resolved to become a pilot on the Mississippi. How he learnt the river he has told us in Life on the Mississippi, wherein his adventures, his experiences, and his impressions while he was a cub-pilot are recorded with a combination of precise veracity and abundant humor which makes the earlier chapters of that marvelous book a most masterly fragment of autobiography. The life of a pilot was full of interest and excitement and opportunity, and what young Clemens saw and heard and divined during the years when he was going up and down the mighty river we may read in these pages.

"Roughing It" is another one of Mark Twains chronicles of his wandering years, this one being the prequel to "Innocents Abroad." His adventures take place in the Wild West, Salt Lake City and even in Hawaii - among other places. He even enlists as a Confederate cavalryman for some time. The book is also a prolific example for Twains excellent sense of humour.

The character of American humor, and its want of resemblance to the humor of Kamtschatka and Patagonia,will the reader forgive us if we fail to set down here the thoughts suggested by these fresh and apposite topics? Will he credit us with a self-denial proportioned to the vastness of Mr. Clementss very amusing book, if we spare to state why he is so droll, orwhich is as much to the purposewhy we do not know? This reticence will leave us very little to say by way of analysis; and, indeed, there is very little to say of "The Innocents Abroad" which is not of the most obvious and easy description. The idea of a steamer-load of Americans going on a prolonged picnic to Europe and the Holy Land is itself almost sufficiently delightful, and it is perhaps praise enough for the author to add that it suffers nothing from his handling. If one considers the fun of making a volume of six hundred octavo pages upon this subject, in compliance with one of the main conditions of a subscription books success, bigness namely, one has a tolerably fair piece of humor, without troubling Mr. Clements further. It is out of the bounty and abundance of his own nature that he is as amusing in the execution as in the conception of his work. And it is always good-humored humor, too, that he lavishes on his reader, and even in its impudence it is charming; we do not remember where it is indulged at the cost of the weak or helpless side, or where it is insolent, with all its sauciness and irreverence. The standard shams of travel which everybody sees through suffer possibly more than they ought, but not so much as they might; and one readily forgives the harsh treatment of them in consideration of the novel piece of justice done on such a traveller as suffers under the pseudonyme of Grimes. It is impossible also that the quality of humor should not sometimes be strained in the course of so long a narrative; but the wonder is rather in the fact that it is strained so seldom.

Meander through Provence in the company of Henry James experiencing the sights, culture and sounds of late nineteenth-century Southern France in this new book in Hesperuss bestselling On series. In 1882, a year after the publication of his wildly successful The Portrait of a Lady, which dealt with the difficulties faced by American expatriate Daisy Miller in Europe, Henry James set out a six-week tour of south-eastern France, taking in Tours, Bourges, Nantes, Toulouse and Arles. Although a sometime resident of Paris, James was convinced that the soul of France resided not in the capital but in the provinces, and he set out to find it. Beginning in Touraine, James followed the course of the Rho;ne north to Burgundy, writing articles on architecture, literature and personal observation that were serialised in The Atlantic Monthly. The resulting work is a fascinating patchwork, switching seamlessly between the broad strokes of classic travel writing and the smallest details of human behaviour for which James is best known. On provence is at once an excellent example of James prose writing and an outstanding work of travel writing in its own right.

Since the voyage of Columbus in search of the New World, and of Raleigh in quest of El Dorado, no visit to America has excited so much interest and conjecture as that of the author of "Oliver Twist." . . . In the mean time the book, however disconcerting to those persons who had looked for something quite different, will bring no disappointment to such as can be luxuriously content with good sense, good feeling, good fun, and good writing. The information, with few exceptions, might be gained much more advantageously from the map and gazetteer. The perusal of them has served chiefly to lower our estimate of the man, and to fill us with contempt for such a compound of egotism, coxcombry, and cockneyism. . . . We have never read a book, professing to give an account of any country, which, in respect to its natural features, its towns and cities, its manners and customs, its social, civil, and religious institutionsin short, in respect to everything about which the reader wishes to receive information, or at least to ascertain the opinions of the author, is so profoundly silent as the book before us.