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Travel Classics

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	The Faber Book of Exploration What is an explorer? What do Scott and Amundsen, Stanley and Livingstone, Burton and Speke, Columbus and Cortes, Lewis and Clark, Captain Cook and Marco Polo have in common? Bendedict Allen's anthology of human exploration brings vividly to life what it feels like to walk off the edge of the known world; to emerge - dazed, dying yet triumphant - from the Amazon jungle; to stand on the roof of the world. Through the words of those who have set off into 'the unknown' and returned to bring this 'unknown' back to their people, the places themselves seem to speak. This volume ranges across various terrain - hot and cold deserts, mountains and plains, jungles and high seas - bringing together Vikings and missionaries, conquistadors and botanists, to name but a few among an array of unlikely travelling companions, whose description of their experiences will help us to understand and appreciate what kind of attributes make a true 'explorer'. 'A generous, handsome volume, that will provide hours upon hours of absorption and revelation' - The Times Publisher: Faber and Faber Editor: Benedict Allen ISBN: 0571206964 Published: 2002 Hardback: 832 pages Price: £25.00


	Marco Polo - The Travels Marco Polo was the most famous traveller of his time. His voyages began in 1271 with a visit to China, after which he served the Kubilai Khan on numerous diplomatic missions. On his return to the West he was made a prisoner of war and met Rustichello of Pisa, with whom he collaborated on this book. The accounts of his travels provide a fascinating glimpse of the different societies he encountered: their religions, customs, ceremonies and way of life; on the spices and silks of the East; on precious gems, exotic vegetation and wild beasts. He tells the story of the holy shoemaker, the wicked caliph and the three kings, among a great many others, evoking a remote and long-vanished world with colour and immediacy. This edition also includes an index and maps. Publisher: Penguin Classics ISBN: 0140440577 Published: 1974 Paperback: 384 pages Price: £9.99


	The Travels of Ibn Battutah Ibn Battutah was just 21 when he set out in 1325 from his native Tangier on a pilgrimage to Mecca. He did not return to Morocco for another 29 years, travelling instead through more than 40 countries on the modern map, covering 75,000 miles and getting as far north as the Volga, as far east as China and as far south as Tanzania. He wrote of his travels, and comes across as a superb ethnographer, biographer, anecdotal historian and occasional botanist and gastronome. Publisher: Pan Macmillan Editor: Tim Mackintosh-Smith ISBN: 0330418793 Published: 2003 Paperback Price: £8.99


	The Vinland Sagas - The Norse Discovery of America The two medieval lcelandic sagas translated in this volume tell one of the most arresting stories in the history of exploration - the discovery of America by Norsemen five centuries before Christopher Columbus. In spare and vigorous prose they record Europe's first surprised glimpse of the eastern shores of the North American continent and the people who inhabited them. The Sagas describe how Eirik the Red founded an Icelandic colony in Greenland and how his son, Leif the Lucky, later sailed south to explore and if possible exploit the chance discovery by Bjarni Herjolfsson of an unknown land. Publisher: Penguin Classic ISBN: 0140441549 Published: 1973 Paperback: 128 pages, 129 x 198 mm Price: £7.99


	Christopher Columbus - The Four Voyages 'The Admiral was quite certain that they were near land...He promised to give a silk doublet to the first sailor who should report it.' No gamble in history has been more momentous than the landfall of Columbus's ship the Santa Maria in the Americas in 1492 - an event that paved the way for the conquest of a 'New World'. The accounts collected here provide a vivid narrative of his voyages throughout the Caribbean and finally to the mainland of Central America, although he still believed he had reached Asia. Columbus himself is revealed as a fascinating and contradictory figure, fluctuating from awed enthusiasm to paranoia and eccentric geographical speculation. Prey to petty quarrels with his officers, his pious desire to bring Christian civilization to 'savages', matched by his rapacity for gold, Columbus was nonetheless an explorer and seaman of staggering vision and achievement. J. M. Cohen has skilfully woven together Columbus's logbooks and letters, the biography by his son Hernando, the official history by Oviedo, and the letters of the fleet physician and a loyal lieutenant, and the result is a unique contemporary record of a great adventure as it unfolds. Publisher: Penguin Classic ISBN: 0140442170 Published: 1992 Paperback: 320 pages, 129 x 198 mm Price: £9.99


	Bernal Diaz del Castillo - The Conquest of New Spain 'Whenever we fired our guns, the Indians gave great shouts and whistles, and threw up straw and earth so that we could not see what harm we had done them.' Vivid, powerful and absorbing, this is a first-person account of one of the most startling military episodes in history: the overthrow of Montezuma's Aztec Empire by the ruthless Hernan Cortes and his band of adventurers. Bernal Diaz del Castillo, a soldier under Cortes, presents a fascinatingly detailed description of the Spanish landing in Mexico in 1520 and their amazement at the city, the exploitation of the natives for gold and other treasures, the expulsion and flight of the Spaniards, their regrouping and eventual capture of the Aztec capital. The Conquest of New Spain has a compelling immediacy that brings the past and its characters to life and offers a unique eyewitness view of the conquest of one of the greatest civilizations of the Americas. Publisher: Penguin Classics ISBN: 0140441239 Published: 1973 Paperback: 416 pages Price: £9.99


	Hiram Bingham - Lost City of the Incas First published in the 1950s, this is a classic account of the rediscovery in 1911 of the lost city of Machu Picchu. In 1911 Hiram Bingham set out to Peru in search of the legendary city of Vilcabamba, capital city of the last Inca ruler, Manco Inca. With a combination of doggedness and good fortune he stumbled on the perfectly preserved ruins of Machu Picchu perched on a cloud-capped ledge 2000 ft above the torrent of the Urumbamba River. The buildings were of white granite, exquisitely carved blocks each higher than a man. Bingham had not, as it turned out, found Vilcabamba, but he had nevertheless made an astonishing discovery which he described in this bestselling book. Publisher: Orion ISBN: 1842125850 Published: 2003 Paperback: 224 pages, 198 x 129 mm Price: £8.99


	The Journals of Captain Cook Captain Cook's Journals provide his vivid first-hand account of three extraordinary expeditions. These charted the entire coast of New Zealand and the east coast of Australia, and brought back detailed descriptions of Tahiti, Tonga and a host of until then unknown islands in the Pacific. The journals amply reveal the determination, courage and skill which enabled Cook to wrestle with the continuous dangers of uncharted seas and the problems of achieving a relationship with the peoples whose unannounced guest he became. This edition, abridged from the four-volume collection published by the Hakluyt Society, makes Cook's inimitable personal account of his nine years of voyaging widely accessible for the first time. The selection preserves the spirit and rhythm of the full narrative, as well as Cook's idiosyncratic spelling. Philip Edwards gives an introduction to each voyage together with maps, a glossary of unusual words and indexes of people and places. A postscript offers a full assessment of the controversies surrounding Cook's death. Publisher: Penguin Classic ISBN: 0140436472 Published: 1999 Paperback: 688 pages Price: £9.99


	Charles Darwin - Voyage of the Beagle When the Beagle sailed from England on 27th December 1831, Charles Darwin was twenty-two and setting off on the voyage of a lifetime. The journal that he kept shows a naturalist making patient observations concerning geology and natural history as well as people, places and events. Volcanoes in the Galapagos, the Gossamer spider of Patagonia, the Australasian coral reefs and the brilliance of the firefly; all are to be found in these extraordinary writings. The insights made on the five-year voyage were to set in motion the intellectual currents that lead to the most controversial book of the Victorian age: The Origin of Species. This volume reprints Charles Darwin's journal in a shortened form. It contains an introduction providing a background to Darwin's thought and work, as well as notes, maps and appendices and an essay on scientific geology and the Bible by Robert FitzRoy, Darwin's friend and captain of the Beagle. Publisher: Penguin Classic ISBN: 014043268X Published: 1989 Paperback: 448 pages, 129 x 198 mm Price: £8.99


	Heinrich Harrer - Seven Years in Tibet Heinrich Harrer, already a famous mountaineer and Olympic ski champion, was caught by the outbreak of the Second World War while climbing in the Himalayas. An Austrian national, he was imprisoned by the British in India. By an almost super-human effort, on his third attempt he succeeded in escaping from the internment camp and fled into Tibet. After a series of remarkable experiences in a country never crossed before by a Westerner, Harrer reached the forbidden city of Lhasa. He stayed there for seven years, learned the language and acquired a greater understanding of Tibet and the Tibetans than any Westerner had ever before achieved. He became the friend and tutor of the young Dalai Lama and finally accompanied him into India when he was put to flight by the Red Chinese invasion. Made into a successful motion picture starring Brad Pitt, this is a stunning story of incredible courage and self-reliance set against the backdrop of a mysterious and magnificent culture. 'Like the voyage of the Kon-Tiki, it deserves to take its place among the few great travel stories of our own times' - The Times. 'Few adventureres in this century have had the combined luck and hardihood to return with such news as this. Fewer still have rendered it so powerfully unadorned' - Times Literary Supplement. 'Some books, like some mountains, are lonely and unrivalled peaks, and this is one of these' - The Economist. Publisher: Harper Perennnial ISBN: 0586087079 Published: 2005 Paperback Price: £8.99


	T. E. Lawrence - Seven Pillars of Wisdom Although 'continually and bitterly ashamed' that the Arabs had risen in revolt against the Turks as a result of fraudulent British promises of self-rule, Lawrence led them in a triumphant campaign which revolutionized the art of war. Seven Pillars of Wisdom recreates epic events with extraordinary vividness. In the words of E. M. Forster, 'Round this tent-pole of a military chronicle, T. E. has hung an unexampled fabric of portraits, descriptions, philosophies, emotions, adventures, dreams'. However flawed, Lawrence is one of the twentieth century's most fascinating figures. This is the greatest monument to his character and achievements. Publisher: Penguin Classics ISBN: 0141182768 Published: 2000 Paperback: 704 pages Price: £10.99


	Thor Heyerdahl - In the Footsteps of Adam Thor Heyerdahl achieved lasting fame in 1947 sailing the primitive balsa-wood raft 'Kon-Tiki' from Peru to Polynesia. One of the greatest explorers of our day, in this book Thor Heyerdahl has chosen to take a journey through his memories. This is not a chronological autobiography but rather an epic exploration of the world and the amazing events that Heyerdahl has pioneered, participated in and observed. In the Footsteps of Adam is an account of life where personal experiences of a dramatic and emotional nature - secret missions during the war and near-fatal accidents - are woven together with his views on religious fatih, politics and ecology. It is a book that focuses on the author's own remarkable life, and also brings us back to the dawn of civilization and out into the future. Thor Heyerdahl has spent a long lifetime wandering in the footsteps of mankind. He invites the reader to participate in that journey by sharing generously the details of his private and public life, his accumulated wisdom, and his friendships with a wide range of influential world leaders such as Fidel Castro and Mikhail Gorbachev. - 'A compelling compendium of adventure, history and philosophy by a man who knows arguably as much about the planet as anyone alive' - Scotsman Publisher: Abacus ISBN: 0349112738 Published: 2001 Paperback: 352 pages Price: £8.99

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