Educated at Sandhurst, Sir George Grey (1812 98) became Governor of South Australia when he was not yet thirty. Later he served as Governor of New Zealand and High Commissioner for South Africa, and in the 1870s he enjoyed a period as Premier of New Zealand. Although he liked to portray himself as 'good Governor Grey' some of his contemporaries found him ruthless and manipulative. Like many other Victorian administrators, he was convinced that the 'savage' natives needed to be 'raised' properly in order to become more like Europeans. In this 1841 publication, Grey writes about two expeditions...

Educated at Sandhurst, Sir George Grey (1812 98) became Governor of South Australia when he was not yet thirty. Later he served as Governor of New Zealand and High Commissioner for South Africa, and in the 1870s he enjoyed a period as premier of New Zealand. Although he liked to portray himself as 'good Governor Grey', some of his contemporaries found him ruthless and manipulative. Like many other Victorian administrators, he was convinced that the 'savage' natives needed to be 'improved' in order to become more like Europeans. In this 1841 publication, Grey writes about two expeditions to...

Robert Walpole (1781 1856), great-nephew and namesake of Britain's first prime minister, was a classical scholar and clergyman. After graduating from Trinity College, Cambridge, he visited Greece and the Middle East. In 1817 he published Memoirs Relating to European and Asiatic Turkey (also reissued in this series), extracts from the unpublished papers of various travellers and antiquaries, and it was so well received that he produced this continuation in 1820. It consists of extracts from the unpublished papers of, among others, W. M. Leake and John Sibthorp, with descriptions of...

The dissenting minister Andrew Kippis (1725 95) was a Member of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Royal Society. With this work of 1788, he was the first biographer of Captain James Cook (1728 79), although several of Cook's colleagues, including Johann Reinhold Forster in 1778 and David Samwell in 1786, had previously published memoirs of their service with him. Believing that 'his public transactions ... are the grand objects to which the attention of his biographer must be directed', Kippis draws on the official Admiralty accounts of Cook's voyages and focuses on his professional life....

Robert Walpole (1781 1856), great-nephew and namesake of Britain's first prime minister, was a classical scholar and clergyman. After graduating from Trinity College, Cambridge, he visited Greece and the Middle East. This work, first published in 1817 and reissued in its second edition in 1818, consists of extracts from the unpublished papers of J. B. S. Morritt, John Sibthorp, Philip Hunt, J. D. Carlyle and other travellers, with descriptions of antiquities, and notes by the editor. The topics vary considerably and reflect the wide interests of contemporary educated and travelled men at a...

This four-volume edition of the Arabic text of the Journey of the Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta (1304 68/9), with a French translation, was published in 1853 8 as part of the 'Collection d'ouvrages orientaux' of the French Societe Asiatique. In 1325, Ibn Battuta, who came from a family of Islamic jurists in Tangier, set out to make the pilgrimage to Mecca the beginning of a journey that would last for twenty-four years and take him as far as China. In Volume 1, he describes his departure from Tangier, and his journey via Tunis to Egypt, where he travelled to Cairo, planning to reach a Red...

This four-volume edition of the Arabic text of the Journey of the Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta (1304 68/9), with a French translation, was published in 1853 8. In 1325, Ibn Battuta, who came from a family of Islamic jurists in Tangier, set out to make the pilgrimage to Mecca the beginning of a journey that would last for twenty-four years and take him as far as China. In Volume 2, he leaves Najaf and heads for Persia, exploring Isfahan and Shiraz before returning to Baghdad. Next he goes north, as far as modern Turkey, before performing a second pilgrimage to Mecca. From Jeddah, he sails to...

This four-volume edition of the Arabic text of the Journey of the Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta (1304 68/9), with a French translation, was published in 1853 8. In 1325, Ibn Battuta, who came from a family of Islamic jurists in Tangier, set out to make the pilgrimage to Mecca the beginning of a journey that would last for twenty-four years and take him as far as China. In Volume 3, having decided to visit the court of the Turkic sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq at Delhi, he travels via Bukhara and Samarkand to Afghanistan and then across the Hindu Kush into India. At Delhi, he was given the post...

This four-volume edition of the Arabic text of the Journey of the Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta (1304 68/9), with a French translation was published in 1853 8. In 1325, Ibn Battuta, who came from a family of jurists in Tangier, set out to make the pilgrimage to Mecca the beginning of a journey that would last for twenty-four years and take him as far as China. In Volume 4, the sultan of Delhi asks Ibn Battuta to lead an embassy to China, during which he suffers difficulties, including attacks by Hindus, and shipwreck. He eventually reaches China via Sri Lanka, Vietnam and the Philippines; he...

Sir Adolphus Slade (1804 77), British naval officer and author, documents his experiences crossing Europe to Turkey in these detailed and richly worded travel journals. Having joined the Royal Navy at a young age, he was promoted to Lieutenant in 1827. Subsequently, he was posted on several missions to Turkey and Greece, in between which he would take the opportunity for personal travel and writing. This is one among several works recording his travels across Europe; he was later appointed administrative head of the Turkish Navy (his history of the Crimean War is also reissued in this...