Diary of a Pilgrimage

Jerome, Jerome Klapka. Diary of a Pilgrimage. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1891.

 

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Roughing it in the Bush

Moodie, Susanna. Roughing it in the Bush. London: R. Bentley, 1857.

 

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Across Asia on a Bicycle

Allen, Thomas Gaskell, and William Lewis Sachtleben. Across Asia on a Bicycle. New York: The Century Co, 1894.

This volume is made up of a series of sketches describing the most interesting part of a bicycle journey around the world,—our ride across Asia. We were actuated by no desire to make a “record” in bicycle travel, although we covered 15,044 miles on the wheel, the longest continuous land journey ever made around the world. 

The day after we were graduated at Washington University, St. Louis, Mo., we left for New York. Thence we sailed for Liverpool on June 23, 1890. Just three years afterward, lacking twenty days, we rolled into New York on our wheels, having “put a girdle round the earth.” 

Our bicycling experience began at Liverpool. After following many of the beaten lines of travel in the British Isles we arrived in London, where we formed our plans for traveling across Europe, Asia, and America. The most dangerous regions to be traversed in such a journey, we were told, were western China, the Desert of Gobi, and central China. Never since the days of Marco Polo had a European traveler succeeded in crossing the Chinese empire from the west to Peking. 

Crossing the Channel, we rode through Normandy to Paris, across the lowlands of western France to Bordeaux, eastward over the Lesser Alps to Marseilles, and along the Riviera into Italy. After visiting every important city on the peninsula, we left Italy at Brindisi on the last day of 1890 for Corfu, in Greece. Thence we traveled to Patras, [pg xii]proceeding along the Corinthian Gulf to Athens, where we passed the winter. We went to Constantinople by vessel in the spring, crossed the Bosporus in April, and began the long journey described in the following pages. When we had finally completed our travels in the Flowery Kingdom, we sailed from Shanghai for Japan. Thence we voyaged to San Francisco, where we arrived on Christmas night, 1892. Three weeks later we resumed our bicycles and wheeled by way of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas to New York. 

During all of this journey we never employed the services of guides or interpreters. We were compelled, therefore, to learn a little of the language of every country through which we passed. Our independence in this regard increased, perhaps, the hardships of the journey, but certainly contributed much toward the object we sought—a close acquaintance with strange peoples. 

During our travels we took more than two thousand five hundred photographs, selections from which are reproduced in the illustrations of this volume. 

 

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From Pekin to Calais by Land

De Windt, Harry. From Pekin to Calais by Land. London: Chapmann and Hall, 1889.

There are two Englishmen at present living in Shangai who have travelled overland from Europe to China. I was told, when there, that these gentlemen are continually receiving letters from England asking for information relative to the journey from Petersburg to Pekin and vice versa, via the Gobi Desert and Siberia. It was mainly owing to this circumstance that I publish these pages, for I fear the general reader will find little of interest in this account of a monotonous pilgrimage through Europe and Asia....

 

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Sailing Alone around the World

Slocum, Joshua. Sailing Alone around the World. New York: The Century Co, 1900.

Joshua Slocum’s autobiographical account of his solo trip around the world is one of the most remarkable – and entertaining – travel narratives of all time. Setting off alone from Boston aboard the thirty-six-foot wooden sloop Spray in April 1895, Captain Slocum went on to join the ranks of the world’s great circumnavigators – Magellan, Drake, and Cook. But by circling the globe without crew or consorts, Slocum would outdo them all: his three-year solo voyage of more than 46,000 miles remains unmatched in maritime history for its courage, skill, and determination.

 

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Around the World in Eighty Days

Verne, Jules. Around the World in Eighty Days. Boston: James R. Osgood, 1873.

 

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Le Tour du Monde en Quatre-Vingt Jours

Verne, Jules. Le Tour du Monde en Quatre-Vingt Jours. Paris: Hetzel et C.ie, 1874.

 

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Le Tour du Monde en 240 Jours

Michel, Ernest. Le Tour du Monde en 240 Jours. Nice: Patronage de Saint-Pierre, 1882.

 

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Around the World on a Bicycle

Stevens, Thomas. Around the World on a Bicycle. London: Sampson Low, 1887.

Richly entertaining account, first published in 1887, of the first man to ride a bicycle around the world. Stevens rode his high-wheeler from San Francisco to Boston, then sailed to London for the ride across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.

 

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A Canterbury Pilgrimage

Pennell, Joseph, and Elizabeth Robins Pennell. A Canterbury Pilgrimage. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1885.

 

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Some Humorous Experiences of a Globe Trotter

Connell, James. Some Humorous Experiences of a Globe Trotter. Battle Creek, Mich.: Ellis Pub. Co., 1915.

 

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A Tramp across the Continent

Fletcher Lummis, Charles. A Tramp across the Continent. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1892.

When young Charles Lummis heard about a job in the small town of Los Angeles more than a century ago, he walked all the way to it—across the plains, up Pike's Peak, down Devil's Gorge, through the Grand Canyon, over the desert. It was, by conservative estimate, one of the grandest hikes in American history. With no reason to be modest, Lummis called his "unpretentious" account of it "the wayside notes of a happy vagabonding."

 

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A Vagabond Journey around the World

Franck, Harry Alverson. A Vagabond Journey around the World. New York: The Century Co, 1910.

This is Harry A. Franck's first book. It's the account of his epic journey around the world. He originally intended to travel without money, without weapons, and without carrying baggage or supplies. Instead, he wanted to depend both for protection and the necessities of life on personal endeavor and the native resources of each locality. He altered his original plan to decide to carry a kodak camera and enough money to cover photography supplies ($104). The chief object of the journey was to live and work among the world's workers in every clime. His plan included no fixed itinerary. The details of route he left to chance and the exigencies of circumstances.

 

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Innocents Abroad

Twain, Mark. Innocents Abroad. Hartford: American Pub. Co., 1881.

Being some account of the steamship Quaker City's pleasure excursion to Europe and the Holy land; with descriptions of countries, nations, incidents, and adventures as they appeared to the author : with two hundred and thirty-four illustrations. The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrims' Progress was published by American author Mark Twain in 1869. The travel literature chronicles Twain's pleasure cruise on board the chartered vessel Quaker City through Europe and the Holy Land with a group of religious pilgrims. It was the best selling of Twain's works during his lifetime.

 

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