Travel literature

Travel Literature is a literary genre that is quite popular, yet curiously overlooked by critics. Most major bookstores have a significant collection, showing its continuing popularity. Some of the most famous figures in English literature have made significant contributions to this field.

Travel literature is not to be confused with with travel guides, usually a series put out by a publisher, each dealing with a particular country, city or region. These are good in themselves and useful for travellers, as they provide a wealth of information on hotels, restaurants, major sights, travel tips etc. The writers are often specialists who travel and write these books for a living.

This article will briefly comment on travel literature in the English language.

The best of travel literature is read for the enjoyment of sharing the reactions of a cultured person with significant literary skills to an interesting place. It is akin to hearing an interesting person tell a good story about their life experiences.Travel writers have a greater scope for their writing than most, as the travel can be the occasion for humour, character sketches, an opportunity to compare cultures or religions or to reflect on the human condition. Persons of broad learning are at a significant advantage here and it is often done by a mature writer who may be somewhat "written out" in his or her customary field. But, younger writers tend to have more adventures.

Some great travel writers specialize in the genre, ex.,Paul Theroux, while others wander in from other genres from time to time.

There is a point too where travel literature interesects with essay writing as in V. S. Naipaul's "India, A Wounded Civilization" and with nature writing as many of the work's of Gerald Durrell.

Below is a very partial list of some of the highlights of travel literature.

Patrick Leigh Fermor : "A Time Of Gifts" A journey by an 18 year old in 1933/4 overland from the Hook of Holland to Hungary

Evelyn Waugh "When the Going Was Good"--With Waugh around the Mediterranean, to Ethiopia, across Africa and through the jungles of South America, in the late 1920's and 1930's.

John Steinbeck "Travels With Charley"-A classic American road book (Charley is a poodle)

William Least Heat Moon "Blue Highways" An American Classic by an author well known for travel writing

D.H. Lawrence "The Sea and Sardinia"

Robert Louis Stevenson "Travels With A Donkey in the Cevennes" Another classic set in France

Hilaire Belloc "The Path To Rome" A ramble by foot from central France to Rome in 1902.

Jan Morris Author of many works, especially about cities (ex., Trieste)

Gordon Sinclair "Khyber Caravan" A somewhat curmudgeonly account of 1934 travels in British India by a later famous Canadian journalist and television personality