A Church of England clergyman and biblical scholar, George Townsend (1788–1857) gained recognition for preparing chronological arrangements of both the Old and New Testament. First published in 1850, the present work is an intriguing account of his journey to Italy for an audience with Pope Pius IX, whom he intended to convert to Protestantism. Townsend's journal features details of his stay in Paris, where he was received by the city's archbishop, as well as remarks on the churches and clergy he encountered along the way. In Rome and the Vatican, he visited the main sites of interest while commenting on points of doctrinal divergence and the hospitality shown towards him. Warmly received by Pius IX, who chose to interpret the visit as ecumenical, Townsend inevitably failed in his ultimate objective. Tendentious and forthright, his work sheds light on a strain of English anti-Catholicism.

The radical writer and poet Helen Maria Williams (1759–1827) is best remembered for her eight-volume Letters from France (1790–6), charting the progress of the French Revolution. Having published poetry and a novel, Julia (1790), she travelled to France, where her salon welcomed the likes of Mary Wollstonecraft, Thomas Paine and leading Girondists. Forced to flee the country in 1794, she went into exile in Switzerland for six months, travelling with the printer and political reformer John Hurford Stone (1763–1818). This two-volume account of the journeys she made during her time there, first published in 1798, documents what she sees as the failure of Swiss democracy. Highlighting the shortcomings of the Swiss government and the suffering of much of Swiss society through exploitation, Williams anticipates revolutionary activity in the cantons. In Volume 2, she describes her excursion in the Alps, presenting also observations on Zurich, Fribourg and Berne.

The radical writer and poet Helen Maria Williams (1759–1827) is best remembered for her eight-volume Letters from France (1790–6), charting the progress of the French Revolution. Having published poetry and a novel, Julia (1790), she travelled to France, where her salon welcomed the likes of Mary Wollstonecraft, Thomas Paine and leading Girondists. Forced to flee the country in 1794, she went into exile in Switzerland for six months, travelling with the printer and political reformer John Hurford Stone (1763–1818). This two-volume account of the journeys she made during her time there, first published in 1798, documents what she sees as the failure of Swiss democracy. Highlighting the shortcomings of the Swiss government and the suffering of much of Swiss society through exploitation, Williams anticipates revolutionary activity in the cantons. Volume 1 concentrates primarily on Basel and its canton.

The son of Erasmus Darwin and uncle of Charles Darwin, Francis Darwin lived a mostly quiet life as a doctor in Lichfield, taking early retirement to a remote part of Derbyshire. As a young man, however, he took an intrepid and eventful Grand Tour of the Mediterranean and kept a detailed journal. The quick succession of places and events and the constant danger due to war, piracy and plague make this a thrilling read, with murder and adventure on every page. Highlights of the journey include a mountain climb with a bottle of laudanum as the only provision, a daring escape over the rooftops of a Greek village from a group of enraged natives, and dinner with Lord Byron, though Darwin frustratingly reveals little about the poet. The journal was edited for publication by his grandson in 1927, in 'tribute to the remarkable pluck and indomitable energy of the author'.

During a life of many and varied interests, the art historian and mountaineer William Martin Conway (1856–1927) served as a professor of art at Liverpool and Cambridge, a member of parliament, director-general of the Imperial War Museum, and president of the Alpine Club. He climbed extensively in Europe and the Himalayas, mapped part of the Karakoram range (for which he was knighted), and named several mountains. In 1894 he walked the length of the Alps accompanied by two Gurkha soldiers. The celebrated expedition took the party sixty-five days to complete. Conway and his companions climbed twenty-one peaks, including Mont Blanc, the Jungfrau and Grossglockner, and traversed thirty-nine mountain passes. Published a year later, this is the illustrated second edition of Conway's popular personal account of the expedition, in which he documents the party's progress on a daily basis.

Isabel J. Armstrong (born c.1848) and her travelling companion Edith Payne were part of an increasing cohort of determined women entering territory deemed unsuitable for ladies: travel. Women such as Isabella Bird (whose work is also available in this series) and Mary Kingsley had defied social convention in order to explore the world around them. Their independence of spirit and thirst for knowledge made them inspirational role models. Little is known of Armstrong and Payne other than what is recorded in this engaging account of their Greek adventures, about which 'the general opinion seemed to be that we were going out to be murdered'. First published in 1893, the book depicts a country whose traditions and way of life were in danger of being swept away by the advance of modern technology. Incorporating vivid descriptions of Piraeus, Olympia, Thessaly and the monasteries of Meteora, the narrative is charmingly illustrated with Armstrong's own sketches.

Kate Marsden (1859–1931), the youngest of eight children from a poor family, was a highly committed nurse. She cared for soldiers in the Russo-Turkish War in 1877–8, and undertook missionary travels to various countries, but she was especially concerned about the plight of those suffering from leprosy. This volume, published in 1893, describes her remarkable journey to Siberian leper colonies. At first she travelled by sledge with a friend, but continued alone on horseback, facing appalling weather conditions with her customary courage. Her commitment to leprosy sufferers led her to found the St Francis Leprosy Guild in London in 1895, and she organised a leprosy hospital in the remote Siberian town of Vilyusk in 1897. She was made a Member of the Russian Imperial Red Cross Society, and she was also one of the first women to be appointed a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

This work was first published in 1793 by the agricultural expert Arthur Young (1741–1820). In addition to farming, he describes the scenery, roads, inns, manners, and - more significantly - examples both of wealth and poverty. Despite describing some servants he encountered in an inn as 'walking dunghills', he was acutely aware of the grinding poverty of the rural poor, noting the excesses of the ruling class, and ascribing to bad government the striking differences he found between the lives of working people in France and England. Hearing of the fall of the Bastille whilst in Strasbourg, he recognised it as presaging either a new constitution or 'inextricable confusions and civil war'. This centennial edition includes an account of recent journeys made by the editor, noting the changes seen since Young's original work. The work remains one of the most fascinating and valuable sources for understanding the conditions of pre-revolutionary rural France.

Novelist Emily Gerard (1849–1905) went with her husband, an officer in the Austrian army, to Transylvania for two years in 1883. Then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, today a region of western Romania, Transylvania was little known to readers back in England. In the years following, she wrote this full-length account (published in 1888) as well as several articles on the region, which Bram Stoker used when researching the setting for Dracula. She describes encounters with the different nationalities that made up the Transylvanian people: Romanians, Saxons and gypsies. Full of startling anecdotes and written in a novelistic style, her work combines her personal recollections with a detailed account of the landscape and people. The second volume covers the gypsy and Jewish populations, as well as Gerard's mixed feelings on leaving the country. For more information on this author, see http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=geraem

Novelist Emily Gerard (1849–1905) went with her husband, an officer in the Austrian army, to Transylvania for two years in 1883. Then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, today a region of western Romania, Transylvania was little known to readers back in England. In the years following, she wrote this full-length account (published in 1888) as well as several articles on the region, which Bram Stoker used when researching the setting for Dracula. She describes her encounters with the different nationalities that made up the Transylvanian people: Romanians, Saxons and gypsies. Full of startling anecdotes and written in a novelistic style, her work combines her personal recollections with a detailed account of the landscape and people. The first volume recounts her first impressions and the superstitions and customs of the Romanian and Saxon populations. For more information on this author, see http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=geraem

Remembered chiefly for his archaeological discoveries in Crete, Sir Arthur John Evans (1851–1941) was also highly respected as an expert on the Balkans, an area then little known. Evans describes 'a land and people among the most interesting in Europe', and in 1875 he was visiting for the third time. This trip found him witnessing the outbreak of the revolt that saw Austria-Hungary take control of Bosnia. Here, however, Evans explores Bosnia's rich heritage with detailed ethnographic and anthropological observations, alongside descriptive impressions of its people and natural beauty. He returned in 1877 as a correspondent for the Manchester Guardian, which resulted in his Illyrian Letters (also reissued in this series). First published in 1876 and reprinted the following year, the present work offers background not only to the revolt in that country, but also to the later deadly conflicts that would shake all of Europe.

Samuel Kneeland (1821–88), educated at Harvard and in Paris as a doctor, served as an army surgeon during the American Civil War. After the war, he returned to lecturing on physiology, and expanded his academic interests to zoology and to natural history in general. His expedition to Iceland was fuelled by a fascination with volcanoes, volcanic islands and the flora and fauna that abounded on them, but Kneeland was as much a cultural and historical tourist as a scientist, enjoying the millennial celebration of the first settlement by Norwegians, the spectacle of geyser eruptions, and the Norse history and traditions of the Icelanders. This 1876 work offers a chronological account of his party's travels through the Scottish islands and around Iceland, bringing a very individual touch to a description of the country, its culture and its outstanding landscapes.

Even in the latter part of the nineteenth century, the Dolomites in the Italian Alps were little known beyond the geological community, and largely unexplored by non-natives. In 1872, the English author Amelia Edwards (1831–92) and her friend travelled through these mountains, riding side-saddle on donkeys. Edwards' account of their journey is presented in this charming work, originally published in 1873. In it, she describes in great detail the people and mishaps met with along the way, including also digressions on the history of the region, the local flora, and geological theories on the origin and development of the mountains. The lively text is accompanied by wood engravings of the settlements and landscapes encountered by the travellers on their route. The result is a highly readable record of a bold journey which helped open up this area to tourism.

Journalist, children's author and translator, Matilda Betham-Edwards inspired a generation of writers. A correspondent of Henry James and a friend of George Eliot, she belonged to a literary network that spanned the globe. Published in 1868, her account of her journey to the Sahara received immediate critical acclaim for its graceful prose and intelligent insights. Leading readers through the Dordogne to Madrid and on to the mosques and malaria of North Africa, Edwards introduces her audience to relics, landscapes and ancient edifices that reflect a wide spectrum of religions and societies. A farmer's daughter, she pays special attention to the living and working conditions of agricultural communities and their struggle for survival in nineteenth-century Europe. As one reviewer for the Examiner explained, 'stay at home readers can hardly do their travelling by proxy more easily than by running through her entertaining pages'.

Self-taught in her father's library, the writer, satirist and poet Lady Mary Wortley Montagu had an inexhaustible appetite for travel and society. This third edition of her Letters and Works (1866) offers insight into the ambitions and frustrations of one of the most unconventional women of the eighteenth century. Volume 2 continues the collection of her humorous, sometimes acerbic writings with correspondence from her travels in Italy. Her letters from abroad during the heyday of the Grand Tour reveal a sociable woman enjoying the sights and society of Florence, Bologna, Venice, Naples and Rome, while hosting salons, and courting controversy. Enhanced by an engraved portrait of her husband, Edward Wortley Montagu, this volume completes an entertaining and informative collection of correspondence. For more information on this author, see http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=montma

Self-taught in her father's library, the writer, satirist and poet Lady Mary Wortley Montagu had an inexhaustible appetite for travel and society. This third edition of her Letters and Works (1866) offers insight into the ambitions and frustrations of one of the most unconventional women of the eighteenth century. In addition to remarks on the follies and diversions of London, Volume 1 provides acute and often acerbic observations of the sights and people she encountered on her travels across Holland, France, Germany, Austria and Turkey. Letters to her family, to Alexander Pope, and to her sister the Countess of Mar are enhanced by an engraved portrait of Lady Mary in her famous Turkish-inspired dress, and an introductory memoir of her life; all of which ensures the enduring appeal of this entertaining collection of correspondence. For more information on this author, see http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=montma

This two-volume Autobiography by Cornelia Knight (1757–1837) was published in 1861. It was complied by the military historian Sir John Kaye from her journals and a memoir based on them, written late in life and remaining incomplete at her death. Cornelia Knight, the daughter of an admiral, was highly educated: she knew ten languages, was skilled at painting and drawing, and published novels and poetry. In 1813 she was appointed to the household of Princess Charlotte of Wales. In 1814, the Prince Regent dismissed all his daughter's attendants, and Knight returned to a life of literature and European travel. Volume 1 covers her childhood, time spent in Italy with Sir William and Lady Hamilton and Lord Nelson, her appointment as companion to Princess Charlotte, the princess's refusal, in 1814, to marry the Prince of Orange, and the subsequent events which led to Knight's dismissal.

Following the precedent and standards set by the Baedeker guides, travel literature enjoyed great popularity during the later nineteenth century. This guidebook to the Alps, written by Hermann Alexander Berlepsch (1814?–83) and translated from German by the renowned author and mountaineer Leslie Stephen (1832–1904), was first published in English in 1861. This was during the golden age of alpinism, when many major peaks were ascended for the first time. While later mountaineers concentrated on climbing as a sport, earlier expeditions were of a more scientific nature; this guidebook, which provides detailed information pertaining to the geology, flora and fauna of the Alps, is a reflection of this ambition. Also containing descriptions of village life and Alpine customs, it enjoyed a significant readership in its day and was also translated into French. It remains an instructive work in the history of alpinism and travel writing.

This short book derives from an article published in the periodical Vacation Tourists and Notes of Travel, edited by Francis Galton, in 1860. W. G. Clark (1821–78) was most famous as co-editor of the Cambridge Shakespeare, but was originally a classical scholar, whose Peloponnesus (1858) is also reissued in this series. This lively account of a critical period in Italian history, 'during the occurrence of events so strange and sudden that they resembled incidents of a romantic melodrama rather than real history', deliberately avoids the usual landscapes, ruins and peasants to give a day-by-day description of events in Naples at the time when Garibaldi had arrived in the city during his campaign for the liberation of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. However, as well as narrating political and military developments, Clark introduces some picturesque notes, including an account of the famous 'miracle' of the liquefaction of St Gennaro's blood.

This two-volume Autobiography by Cornelia Knight (1757–1837) was published in 1861. It was complied by the military historian Sir John Kaye from her journals and a memoir based on them, written late in life and remaining incomplete at her death. Cornelia Knight, the daughter of an admiral, was highly educated: she knew ten languages, was skilled at painting and drawing, and published novels and poetry. In 1813 she was appointed to the household of Princess Charlotte of Wales. In 1814, the Prince Regent dismissed all his daughter's attendants, and Knight returned to a life of literature and European travel. In Volume 2, Knight continues her account of her dismissal, and a later meeting with the Princess, now happily married (though she was shortly to die in childbirth). Knight spent another twenty years in the court circles of Europe: an appendix gives further extracts from her journals and her 'anecdote book'.