Eothen : Traces of Travel Brought Home from the East book cover
Classic 1834 Eastern Journey

Eothen : Traces of Travel Brought Home from the East

by Alexander William Kinglake, Jonathan Raban

Publisher: Eland Publishing Ltd

Paperback ISBN: 9781780601427 13 Jun 2019 199 x 136 x 19 (mm) 368g

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It took Kinglake seven years before he had finished crafting this lively, brilliant and rather insolent tale. The physical details of the journey, undertaken in 1834 across the Balkan frontiers of the Ottoman Empire, through Constantinople, Smyrna, Cyprus into the Near Eastern cities of Jerusalem, Cairo and Damascus, are never as significant as the conversations, chance encounters and attitudes of the author.

Packed full of an infectious charm and a youthful delight at the world, it is above all things funny as it lampoons the pomposity of earnest, middle-aged travellers seeking to establish themselves as professional authorities.