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Off the Beaten Path: A Traveler's Anthology
Laura Stoddart's exquisite and witty drawings have earned her a devoted following. With Off the Beaten Path , she offers a more sublime taste of her artistic talent and sense of humor. In this charming anthology, she pairs her delightful illustrations with sage reflections from intrepid travelers through the ages. Richard Burton on keeping a spouse in the "There is no place where a wife is so much wanted as in the Tropics; but then comes the rub how to keep the wife alive." Constance Larymore on surviving "Always wear corsets, to leave off wearing them ...is a huge there is nothing so fatiguing as to lose one's ordinary support." At turns bizarre, hair raising, hilarious, and inspiring, Off the Beaten Path will amuse both happy wanderers and those who are content to stay at home, thank you very much.
- GenresTravelArtNonfiction
80 pages, Hardcover
First published October 17, 2002
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40 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
October 23, 2023
All the great travellers are here in this volume, Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Marco Polo, Mary Kingsley, Captain Scott, Freya Stark and many more, plus such as Edward Lear, Noel Coward, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Browning, Simon Raven and others. They all offer views on travel, albeit advice to the would-be traveller or reflections on their own travels and they are all pithy comments so the reader can decide whether he/she would enjoy being off the beaten track or would prefer to stay at home.
The Roman philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4BC - c65AD) is one of the earliest travellers to offer his view, which is 'I was not born for one corner; the whole world is my native land'; I wonder if he would be so sure armed with the knowledge of how big the whole world is today? Henry Fielding was also into the whole world theme as well when he grandly stated, 'Map me no map, sir, my head is a map, a map of the whole world.' Really?
And as for advice to the traveller, what self-respecting lady would ignore Constance Larymore's advice? In her volume 'A Resident's Wife in Nigeria' this was, 'Always wear corsets, to leave off wearing them at any time for the sake of coolness is a huge mistake: there is nothing so fatiguing as to lose one's ordinary support.' 'Fatiguing', well, yes, perhaps, as well as other things!
And Rudyard Kipling's advice is probably very true, 'He who travels fastest travels alone'; I'm sure many of us have bemoaned a member of our party lagging behind and holding everyone up. I most certainly have.
Samuel Butler reports, 'She went up the Nile as far as the first crocodile'; who 'she' was, only the crocodile may ever know. And Captain Cook perhaps wished that he had stuck with his initial thoughts, which on his first voyage in 1869 were, 'Some canoes came out to meet us ... and invited us to follow them; but seeing as they were all armed I did not think fit to accept of their invitation.' Ten years later he ignored this dictum, went ashore at Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii, and was killed by Hawaiian villagers. Nancy Mitford must, therefore, have been correct when, in 'Love in a Cold Climate' she wrote, 'Abroad is utterly bloody', sentiments expressed also by Mary Wollstonecraft with 'Hell stalks abroad.' No wonder I remain anchored in the British Isles!
And looking at two sentiments on one theme from two of the greatest of 19th century novelists, William Makepeace Thackeray stated, 'Never, never be such a fool as to go up a mountain ... Men still ascend eminences ... and descending, say they have been delighted. But it is a lie. They have been miserable the whole day' while Anthony Trollope's view was 'The nasty, damp, dirty, slippery, boot-destroying, shin-breaking (no, please say it as it is Anthony!) veritable mountain! Let me recommend my friends to let it alone.' For his own part Trollope also contributes, 'I have nothing remarkable to say of the ascent. We soon got into a cloud, and never got out of it.' How unfortunate.
This book is full of such little gems and is augmented by, and I use the adjective advisedly that the blurb of the book uses, the 'delicious' illustrations by the author. They are certainly absolutely delightful with all the characters having Laura Stoddart's trademark tiny heads that make them quite irresistible. It is a book that can be picked up time and again and each time something new will strike and amuse the reader, both in words and pictures.
But let us end with a simple couple of lines from the Master himself, as Noel Coward wrote, and sang, 'Mad dogs and Englishmen/Go out in the midday sun' - and why not, one could always end up with a pleasant sun tan - even in England.
The Roman philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4BC - c65AD) is one of the earliest travellers to offer his view, which is 'I was not born for one corner; the whole world is my native land'; I wonder if he would be so sure armed with the knowledge of how big the whole world is today? Henry Fielding was also into the whole world theme as well when he grandly stated, 'Map me no map, sir, my head is a map, a map of the whole world.' Really?
And as for advice to the traveller, what self-respecting lady would ignore Constance Larymore's advice? In her volume 'A Resident's Wife in Nigeria' this was, 'Always wear corsets, to leave off wearing them at any time for the sake of coolness is a huge mistake: there is nothing so fatiguing as to lose one's ordinary support.' 'Fatiguing', well, yes, perhaps, as well as other things!
And Rudyard Kipling's advice is probably very true, 'He who travels fastest travels alone'; I'm sure many of us have bemoaned a member of our party lagging behind and holding everyone up. I most certainly have.
Samuel Butler reports, 'She went up the Nile as far as the first crocodile'; who 'she' was, only the crocodile may ever know. And Captain Cook perhaps wished that he had stuck with his initial thoughts, which on his first voyage in 1869 were, 'Some canoes came out to meet us ... and invited us to follow them; but seeing as they were all armed I did not think fit to accept of their invitation.' Ten years later he ignored this dictum, went ashore at Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii, and was killed by Hawaiian villagers. Nancy Mitford must, therefore, have been correct when, in 'Love in a Cold Climate' she wrote, 'Abroad is utterly bloody', sentiments expressed also by Mary Wollstonecraft with 'Hell stalks abroad.' No wonder I remain anchored in the British Isles!
And looking at two sentiments on one theme from two of the greatest of 19th century novelists, William Makepeace Thackeray stated, 'Never, never be such a fool as to go up a mountain ... Men still ascend eminences ... and descending, say they have been delighted. But it is a lie. They have been miserable the whole day' while Anthony Trollope's view was 'The nasty, damp, dirty, slippery, boot-destroying, shin-breaking (no, please say it as it is Anthony!) veritable mountain! Let me recommend my friends to let it alone.' For his own part Trollope also contributes, 'I have nothing remarkable to say of the ascent. We soon got into a cloud, and never got out of it.' How unfortunate.
This book is full of such little gems and is augmented by, and I use the adjective advisedly that the blurb of the book uses, the 'delicious' illustrations by the author. They are certainly absolutely delightful with all the characters having Laura Stoddart's trademark tiny heads that make them quite irresistible. It is a book that can be picked up time and again and each time something new will strike and amuse the reader, both in words and pictures.
But let us end with a simple couple of lines from the Master himself, as Noel Coward wrote, and sang, 'Mad dogs and Englishmen/Go out in the midday sun' - and why not, one could always end up with a pleasant sun tan - even in England.
October 3, 2023
The world, which is a curious sight.
And very much unlike what people write.
- Lord Byron
He who returns from a journey is not the same as he who left.
- Chinese proverb
The real voyage of discovery is not in discovering new lands but in seeing with new eyes.
- Marcel Proust
For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.
- Robert Louis Stevenson
And very much unlike what people write.
- Lord Byron
He who returns from a journey is not the same as he who left.
- Chinese proverb
The real voyage of discovery is not in discovering new lands but in seeing with new eyes.
- Marcel Proust
For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.
- Robert Louis Stevenson
October 27, 2017
A collection of travel-related quotes, mainly from famous or semi-famous persons in history. It was only interesting because you get to laugh at how myopic, prejudiced, politically incorrect or ill-informed some of these people were (for e.g. you get quotes about terrible Russian kitchens, awful and uncomfortable lodging in China, etc).
August 24, 2017
This was a book of quotations about travel, accompanied by delightful illustrations. I read it long ago as part of a BookCrossing book ring. A 4+.
December 31, 2025
delightful quotes and drawings about travelling- very charming.
“Leaving a place behind them,
There was no sense of loss: they fed
Upon the act of leaving —
So hot their hearts for the land ahead - As a kind of pre-conceiving.”
Cecil Day Lewis
“Leaving a place behind them,
There was no sense of loss: they fed
Upon the act of leaving —
So hot their hearts for the land ahead - As a kind of pre-conceiving.”
Cecil Day Lewis
April 7, 2021
Lovely drawings with a handful of quotes about travel.
December 4, 2024
Quotes about traveling. I liked the whimsical drawings, but there wasn't a lot of memorable content otherwise.
July 13, 2012
Exquisite illustrations.
January 9, 2016
Not my cup of tea.
June 22, 2022
The illustrations and design of the book were more interesting and charming than the quotations contained.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews