Eccentric Travellers

by John Keay

Any eccentric is by definition unique: he strikes out on his own. And when eccentricity is united to the thirst for travel, the results are frequently astonishing.
From a rich gallery of courage and absurdity, of vision and delusion, John Keay has made a personal choice of seven extraordinary figures. All were travellers of remarkable achievement, whose place in the history of exploration should be assured.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction

216 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1983

About the author

John Stanley Melville Keay FRGS is an English journalist and author specialising in writing popular histories about India and the Far East, often with a particular focus on their colonisation and exploration by Europeans.

John Keay is the author of about 20 books, all factual, mostly historical, and largely to do with Asia, exploration or Scotland. His first book stayed in print for thirty years; many others have become classics. His combination of meticulous research, irreverent wit, powerful narrative and lively prose have invariably been complimented by both reviewers and readers.

UK-based and a full-time author since 1973, he also wrote and presented over 100 documentaries for BBC Radios 3 and 4 from 1975-95 and guest-lectured tour groups 1990-2000. He reviews on related subjects, occasionally speaks on them, and travels extensively.

Reviews

[Daren · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book, Keay collects the stories of seven travellers, all of whom fit the mould of 'Eccentric'.
The stories are variable although the collection works well enough as a whole.

1 - Captain Philip Thicknesse in A Free Citizen - Probably not the story Keay should have led with in this collection - I didn't find it particularly inspiring reading. 2/5
2 - Thomas Manning in I Anxious Manning's story on the other hand was excellent. A scholar of China - perhaps the most learned in Chinese matters, who undertook an incredible journey to be the first westerner to reach Lhasa. 4.5/5
3 - James Holman in A Humble and Afflicted Individual - Although blind, Holman undertook a journey more strenuous and demanding than other sighted explorers - including Siberia. 4/5
4 - Charles Waterton in A White Man from Yorkshire - Probably the most 'eccentric' of the eccentrics, Waterton took over a family estate in British Guiana before exploring Guiana and Brazil extensively, taking to taxidermy before returning to his family home in Yorkshire and becoming a recluse. 5/5
5 - Joseph Wolff in That Sublime Vagabond - Extensive travels are outlined before perhaps his most famous expedition - to Bukhara in an attempt to rescue two British officers imprisoned by Amir Nasrullar Khan. 4.5/5
6 - William Gifford Palgrave in So Many Various characters - in various guises, including a Syrian Doctor, Palgrave was the first westerner to visit Riyadh and passed though much of the Middle East. 3.5/5
7 - Doctor GW Leitner in A Mistake to Take any Notice of him - Born in Hungary, Leitner was a prodigious learner of languages, and was appointed interpreter to the British Commissariat in the Crimea at age 15, with the rank of Colonel. He travelled extensively in India (Pakistan included). 3/5

Some good, some excellent.
4 stars overall.

[Lianne]

I have been holding on to this title published in 1982 for a long time. The author John Keay has devoted his career to tracking a series of obscure characters of mostly Englishmen in the nineteenth century. Ranging far and wide on questionable journeys with and without guides, these men endured privations the modern traveller would not dare. It was in this tradition of penetrating the unknown that later T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) would embark. Disguised as an Arab doctor, Father Gifford Palgrave was the first Westerner to reach Riyadh, while Thomas Manning reached Lhasa. Keay has presented the lives of seven wanderers whose glory was often unrealized and exploits unrewarded but whose journeys provide a great escape for the armchair tourist.