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RR 2003/250 The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing Edited by Peter Hulme and Tim Youngs Cambridge University Press Cambridge 2002 x + 343 pp. ISBN 0 521 78140 X (hardback); ISBN 0 521 78652 5 paperback)
L45/$65 (hardback);
L15.95/$23 (paperback)
Cambridge Companions to Literature
Keywords Travel, Books
Review DOI 10.1108/09504120310481039
Travel is an amalgam of exploration, travel and tourism. It is history, geography, anthropology, literature, politics, and popular publishing. Unlike many "established" areas of culture and literature, it needs to be put into a coherent frame - one is not already there - and this companion does this job really well. It has both a scholarly and popular approach, and, in a handy chronology, fits a wealth of travel writing, from 1492 until 2001, into the main historical sequence of world events. Hulme is Professor of Literature at the University of Essex and author of Remnants of Conquest: The Island Caribs and Their Visitors, 1877-1998 (Hulme, 2000). Youngs is Reader in English and US Studies at The Nottingham Trent University, author of Travellers in Africa; British Travelogues 1850-1900 (Youngs, 1994) and editor of one of the key journals in the field, Studies in Travel Writing. Contributors include Roy Bridges, James Buzard, Joan Rubies and Helen Carr, all recognized in their (and this) field, and they are well-chosen and their contributions mesh well.
The companion is in three sections-- surveys (historical perspectives), sites (key areas of the world which have most attracted travel writers, explorers, adventurers, and now tourists), and topics (themes like gender and ethnography). This is a convincing and...