Deserta

Charles Montagu Doughty's Travels in Arabia Deserta (1888) is remarkable for its scientific evelations and brilliantly unique style—an artful combination of Arabic and English syntax and diction that rendered a foreign way of life and thought and depicted a distant landscape of stark, barren beauty. The ten original essays in this book examine many aspects of Arabia Deserta, including its Victorian characteristics and aesthetics; its blend of fact and fantasy; its portrayal of Arab society and of Doughty himself; and the accuracy of its geographical, geological, archaeological, historical, and ethnographical observations. Additionally, the book's introduction and two bibliographies probe Arabia Deserta's reception, unique position in the genre of travel literature, and bibliographical history. During the grueling twenty-one-month journey narrated in Arabia Deserta, Doughty endured periods of sickness and near-famine, a series of treacherous guides, attack by a mob, and virtual imprisonment by a corrupt Turkish commandant. Celebrating this epic of scholarship and survival, Explorations in Doughty's "Arabia Deserta" maps the contours of a work that T. E. Lawrence, who had followed Doughty's path to Arabia, called "a book not like other books, but something particular, a bible of its kind."

Translated from the Original Italian Edition of 1510, with a Preface, by John Winter Jones, Esq., F.S.A. And Edited, with Notes and an Introduction, by George Percy Badger. This is a new print-on-demand hardback edition of the volume first published in 1863.

Charles Montagu Doughty (1843 – 1926) was an English poet and traveller, best remembered for his sprawling 1888 work, Travels in Arabia Deserta, which was highly praised by T.E. Lawrence in the 1920s.

For correctness of observation and readiness of wit Varthema stands in the foremost rank of the old Oriental travellers. In Arabia and in the Indian archipelago east of Java he is (for Europe and Christendom) a real discoverer. Even where passing over ground traversed by earlier European explorers, his keen intelligence frequently adds valuable original notes on peoples, manners, customs, laws, religions, products, trade, methods of war. --Richard Francis Burton.

Perhaps the first non-Muslim to enter the holy city of Mecca, the Venetian explorer Ludovico di Varthema, also known as Barthema, wrote about his travels to such exotic places as Egypt, Syria, Arabia, Persia, India, and Ethiopia. His work is noted for its accurate details, human touch, and drama. Suspected of being a spy, Barthema escapes his confinement and ultimately is rescued by the Portuguese. Although published in 1510, this remains a fresh and exciting work today.

This volume (1863) documents the travels of Ludovico di Varthema to Egypt, Syria, Persia and India in 1502-1508.