A Traveller's Year

by Travis Elborough (Compiler), Nick Rennison

A Traveller's Year is an anthology of extracts from diaries, journals and letters, two or three for each day of the year, on the subject of travel and exploration. The extracts convey men and women's experiences of travel and discovery throughout the centuries from classical times to the early twenty-first century, with an emphasis on the period 1750-1950, the classic era of both European exploration and diary-writing. The authors of the pieces range from famous explorers such as Captains Cook and Scott to modern travel writers journeying through the contemporary world, from people who pushed back the boundaries of geographical knowledge to people who wrote about what they did on their summer holidays.

The book includes an introduction, explanatory notes and mini-biographies of all the contributors.

Contributors include:

Gertrude Bell (woman traveller in the Middle East)

James Boswell (travels in Scotland and the Hebrides)

William Cobbett (Rural Rides through England)

Christopher Columbus (journals of his voyages to America)

Charles Darwin (Voyage of the Beagle)

Captain James Cook (voyages in the Pacific)

Henry Fielding (Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon)

Washington Irving (American writer travelled in Europe in first decades of nineteenth century)

Edward Lear (landscape painter and nonsense writer produced journals of his travels in Greece, Corsica, Near East etc)

Lewis & Clark (journals of famous journey of American exploration)

Henry Maundrell (traveller in Middle East at the end of the 17th century)

William Morris (wrote a journal of a trip to Iceland in 1870s)

Michael Palin (a Python abroad)

Mungo Park (African explorer in early nineteenth century)

Henry Peerless (middle-class holiday traveller in Edwardian era whose diaries have been recently published)

John Ruskin (diaries of his travels in Europe, especially Italy)

Captain Robert Falcon Scott (doomed journey to South Pole)

Zacharias von Uffenbach (a German traveller in Georgian England)

Evelyn Waugh (diaries of 1930s travels in Mediterranean and beyond)

John Wesley (travelled throughout Britain and Ireland to preach and kept a journal)

William John Wills (explorer of Australia)

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction

528 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2015

Reviews

[Rachel Stevenson · Rating 4 out of 5]

To sum up: English people abroad complain about the food, the weather, the natives. This compilation also features foreign writers: Chekov enthuses over everything during a trip to Italy. Then again, if you lived in 19th century Russia, everywhere would seem amazing, even Derby. Alternatively, we have the Rajah of Bobbili visiting Britain and declaring Brighton to be very like Bangalore.

There is a difference here between travellers and explorers. The latter's backpage biographies often end with "he was murdered by natives," "he contracted typhoid and died," "died of mysterious gunshot wounds", or "he went into the Arctic wilderness and was never seen again". There are also more quotidian writers, writing about flora and fauna and food - my favourite entry was from William Knight in 1860: “Wondering no doubt as to that restless nature of the crazy Englishman, which drives him out of his own country for the sole purpose of being uncomfortable in other people's”.

[Ayesha Tahir · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book brought me so much joy. It was really a treat to take time out for myself and read a few pages of this daily/weekly/monthly. Is it a good BOOK in terms of like plot/characterization/dialogue e.t.c.? No! It’s just a fun read when you want to read yelp reviews about places people travelled to. It’s really fun reading reviews about hotels people visited in the 20s, or someone’s ship-boarding debacle in the 1800s. I had so much fun reading this book over the course of the year :) <3

[Aileen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve read this one every day throughout the year, on the day the original entries were made, only reading New Year’s Eve a day early. This is a collection pulled from various travel journals, dating right back to the 16th century up to present day travellers such as Michael Palin. I read a similar book a couple of years ago based on London and I found that one far more interesting. In my opinion, it would have been a whole lot better if I’d always known where I was reading about, some were easy to identify, some place names I could Google, others I was totally in the dark about. I’m sure it wouldn’t have added much to just give the country/place to each entry. Having said that, I did think it was a pretty good read, with barely a page or two covering no more than 4 or 5 entries per day.

[Davidg · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a disappointment. I expected entries of interest and some amusement. There is no amusement here, no fun of travel whatsoever. Travel is obviously a serious business. And there wasn’t always much interest either. Here is one entry in full, with the editors’ title.

A Plain Description

Oil Camp. Earthy and clayey plains, generally sound and tolerably grassed, but other places bare salt bush, and withered.
William John Wills, Field Books, 1861<\i>

Now, wouldn’t that just brighten up your 5th April. Note that there is no clue as to where this is in the world either. That happens quite frequently. Because this is the Wills of Burke and Wills, the guess is that this about somewhere in Australia.

My other problem with the book, other than the dry nature of the majority of entries, is the balance of the entries. There are 195 men and 55 women amongst the contributors. More seriously, of the 250, only 3 are not of European, North American or Australian origin. It is a book about white people going to “foreign” places and peoples and describing their strangeness. Really? Only three people from the rest of the world travelled and kept diaries or wrote letters.

There are better Books of Days out there. I know it was only a few paragraphs each day for a year, but it wasn’t a joyous experience.

[Armelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

More an interesting idea than an engrossing read, this compilation of excerpts from letters, diaries and published accounts offers a daily dose of short travel ... nuggets? Tidbits?

There are two or three short entries for each day of the year. Some folks appear repeatedly, others, just once. A list of all of the “contributors” is included, so you have an idea of who these people are.

There are writings from people who traveled in the 1500s, and from every century since.

I quickly lost interest in trying to make this a daily read, but I did try to dip into it 3 or 4 times a month, and, in the end, took exactly one year to finish it.

Because the excerpts are so short, a lot of the context is lost. As is to be expected, some entries are more interesting than others. I found myself pretending that I was reading this aloud to a friend otherwise I had a tendency to just skim.

I admire the amount of work that went into compiling this.

[Jane Routley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love books that you can dip into and I was hoping to find some new travel writers. These are mostly historical travelers though which was disappointing. Also disappointing was the fact that no indication was given as to where many of the places where although there were supposedly witty little titles to all the entries. Lots of fun reading it on the dates though.