The Art of Travel (Perfect Library) - Softcover

Galton, Francis

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1512072532 ISBN 13: 9781512072532

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015

Synopsis

"The Art of Travel" from Francis Galton. English Victorian polymath and psychologist (1822-1911).

About this title

Review:

Darwin's first cousin, Francis Galton, is most famous today as the man who developed eugenics. But he was also a meteorologist, a pioneer in the science of using fingerprints for personal identification, and widely travelled. As a young man he explored the Near East and South West Africa, and these experiences inspired him to write this remarkable guide to the art of travelling, which ran through eight editions in his lifetime.

The book still makes for fascinating reading, as much for the extraordinary historical detail which it provides as for its advice. Some tips are still first-rate--on bivouacking and caring for the backs of pack-animals for instance--and give pointers which are very difficult to find today: how to build pack-saddles or stone ovens, the construction of calabash boats, and so on. Other tips will be of less use to the modern traveller, but, nevertheless, the sections on the "management of savages" and "taking prisoners" give a wonderful perspective on the Victorian world view.

Today, The Art of Travel comes across as a highly unusual book. It is written in the measured, graceful prose of the Victorian age, which gives an elegant reminder of how flabby some contemporary writing has become. Whether he is writing about flocks of sheep sheltering in Hyde Park or making complicated computations of the optimum weights for people and animals to carry, Galton is an engaging companion, and, even 130 years on, often a useful one. --Toby Green

Book Description:

Francis Galton, later a pioneer of biostatistics, published this book in 1855, drawing on his experiences during an extensive journey around Africa. The work is wide-ranging and practical, giving an insight into the needs and expectations of British travellers as they ranged ever more widely over the world.

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1512072532
• ISBN 13: 9781512072532
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 302
• Editor: The Perfect Library