Across the Empty Quarter


Wilfred Thesiger - 2007
    The result was a monument both to his resilience and to the Bedu who guided him and who emerge as the book's real heroes.An extract of 'Arabian Sands, 1959.

Borneo, Celebes, Aru


Alfred Russel Wallace - 1869
    Whether living with Hill Dyaks or hunting Orang-Utans or sailing on a junk to the unbelievably remote Aru islands, Wallace opens our eyes to a now long vanished world.

Escape from the Antarctic (Penguin Great Journeys)


Ernest Shackleton - 1919
    Through one of the greatest recorded feats of navigation and of leadership, he overcame almost impossible odds and rescued every one of his men from otherwise certain death.

The Cobra's Heart (Penguin Great Journeys)


Ryszard Kapuściński - 2007
    Humane, evocative and magical, The Cobra's Heart makes the case for Kapuscinski as a great writer as well as a great journalist.

Life on the Golden Horn


Mary Wortley Montagu - 2007
    Allows readers to travel both around the planet and back through the centuries - but also back into ideas and worlds frightening, ruthless and cruel in different ways from our own.

Can-Cans, Cats and Cities of Ash (Great Journeys)


Mark Twain - 2007
    Great Journeys allows readers to travel both around the planet and back through the centuries – but also back into ideas and worlds frightening, ruthless and cruel in different ways from our own. Few reading experiences can begin to match that of engaging with writers who saw astounding things: Great civilisations, walls of ice, violent and implacable jungles, deserts and mountains, multitudes of birds and flowers new to science. Reading these books is to see the world afresh, to rediscover a time when many cultures were quite strange to each other, where legends and stories were treated as facts and in which so much was still to be discovered.

In the Heart of the Amazon Forest (Penguin Great Journeys)


Henry Walter Bates - 1863
    Great Journeys allows readers to travel both around the planet and back through the centuries - but also back into ideas and worlds frightening, ruthless and cruel in different ways from our own. Few reading experiences can begin to match that of engaging with writers who saw astounding things: great civilizations, walls of ice, violent and implacable jungles, deserts and mountains, and multitudes of birds and flowers new to science.

A Journey to the End of the Russian Empire


Anton Chekhov - 1893
    But lucky chance the Herald was also stranded -- with a band on board, so there was an excellent party. This was a high point of Chekhov's great journey through Russia's wilderness. He was to share a cabin with an opium-smoking Chinese man, learn why Japanese ladies were famed for their sexual prowess and witness vicious punishments in the desolate wasteland of Russia's penal colony.

Adventures in the Rocky Mountains


Isabella Lucy Bird - 1879
    Each beautifully packaged volume offers a way to see the world anew, to rediscover great civilizations and legends, vast deserts and unspoiled mountain ranges, unusual flora and strange new creatures, and much more.

Fighting in Spain


George Orwell - 2007
    

Snakes with Wings and Gold-digging Ants


Herodotus - 2007
    Each beautifully packaged volume offers a way to see the world anew, to rediscover great civilizations and legends, vast deserts andunspoiled mountain ranges, unusual flora and strange new creatures, and much more.

Jaguars and Electric Eels (Penguin Great Journeys)


Alexander von Humboldt - 1853
    This part of his matchless narrative of adventure and scientific research focuses on his time in Venezuela - in the Llanos and on the Orinoco River - riding and paddling, restlessly and happily noting the extraordinary things on every hand. Great Journeys allows readers to travel both around the planet and back through the centuries -- but also back into ideas and worlds frightening, ruthless and cruel in different ways from our own.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl


Harriet Ann Jacobs - 1861
    This autobiographical account chronicles the remarkable odyssey of Harriet Jacobs (1813–1897) whose dauntless spirit and faith carried her from a life of servitude and degradation in North Carolina to liberty and reunion with her children in the North.Written and published in 1861 after Jacobs' harrowing escape from a vile and predatory master, the memoir delivers a powerful and unflinching portrayal of the abuses and hypocrisy of the master-slave relationship. Jacobs writes frankly of the horrors she suffered as a slave, her eventual escape after several unsuccessful attempts, and her seven years in self-imposed exile, hiding in a coffin-like "garret" attached to her grandmother's porch.A rare firsthand account of a courageous woman's determination and endurance, this inspirational story also represents a valuable historical record of the continuing battle for freedom and the preservation of family.

The Classic Slave Narratives


Henry Louis Gates Jr. - 1987
    Here are four of the most notable narratives: The Life of Olaudah Equiano; The History of Mary Prince; Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass; and Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl.

Twelve Years a Slave


Solomon Northup - 1853
    It is a slave narrative of a black man who was born free in New York state but kidnapped in Washington, D.C., sold into slavery, and kept in bondage for 12 years in Louisiana. He provided details of slave markets in Washington, D.C. and New Orleans, as well as describing at length cotton and sugar cultivation on major plantations in Louisiana.