Travel Fiction took us all over the place as the topic for the November 2021 meeting. Miguel de Cervantes launched our journeys with a tour of Spain, a route retraced by Graham Greene 377 years later. Jules Verne guided us around the world and to the center of the Earth, while J. R. R. Tolkien took us only so far as Middle-earth. Verne also took us under the seas, but Jonathan Swift, H. Bedford Jones, and Matthew Hodgart kept us above water on their nautical adventures. H. G. Wells transported us through time into the far future, and Edward Wells (no relation) and William Stirling brought us back to biblical times. Graham Greene hauled us across Europe aboard the Orient Express (twice!). Both John Steinbeck and Neil Gaiman trekked us across the United States, while Forrest Carter made sure we didn't skip over Texas.
The books appear in the order of
their original date of publication.
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| Don Quixote de La Mancha (1818) |
Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de. Don Quixote de La Mancha. 4 volumes. London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1818. Translated by Mary Smirke. Engravings by Robert Smirke (father of the translator). Bound in the publisher's original quarter brown leather.
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| Don Quixote (1908) |
Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de. The History of the Ingenious Gentleman Don
Quixote of La Mancha. 4
volumes. Edinburgh: John Grant, 1908. Translated from the Spanish by Pierre Antoine
Motteux. Etchings by LaLauze. Library edition, bound in brown cloth with
paper labels affixed to the front and spine.
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| Frontispiece and sample illustration by LaLauze in Don Quixote (1908) |
Don Quixote was originally published in two parts, in
1605 and 1615. Fully titled The
Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, the book is generally
regarded as the first modern novel. It
is also considered one of the earliest works of travel fiction as it recounts
the episodic quests and adventures of the noble Alonso Quixano and his squire,
Sancho Panza.
Don Quixote also holds the distinction of being the
second-most-translated book in the world, after the Bible. It was first translated into English in 1612
and 1620 by Thomas Shelton. It has since
been translated into English about 20 more times. In 1700, Pierre Antoine Motteux completed the
third English translation. Motteux's
translation was regarded as "the most agreeable" of the time and remained
the most popular until the 1940s, after it was selected for publication by the
Modern Library in 1930. Modern scholars
and translators found fault with Motteux's treatment of Sancho Panzo. Don Quixote has since been translated
into English nine times since the 1940s.
Mary Smirke's 1818 translation was the first translation completed by a
woman.
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| An Historical Geography of the New Testament |
Wells, Edward. An Historical Geography of the New Testament in Two Parts. Part I: The Journeyings of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Part II: The Travels and Voyages of St. Paul, etc. Being a Geographical and Historical Account of all the Places Mention’d, or referr’d to, in the Books of the New Testament: Very useful for understanding the History of the said Books, and several Particular Texts. To which End there is also added a Chronological Table. Throughout is inserted the Present State of such Places, as have been lately visited by Persons of our own Nation, and of unquestionable Fidelity: whereby the Work is rendered very Useful and Entertaining. Illustrated and Adorned with Maps and several Copper Plates; wherein is represented the Present State of the Place now most Remarkable. London: James Knapton, 1718. 379 pages.
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| Frontispiece and title page |
As laid out in the lengthy full title of the work, Wells traces the travels of Jesus as described in the gospels (part one) and the missionary travels of the apostle Paul described in Acts and the Pauline epistles (part two). This edition contains a fold-out map of Paul's missionary journeys, bound in before the title page to Part Two. First published in 1708, An Historical Geography of the New Testament was followed by An Historical Geography of the Old Testament, published in 1711-12.
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| A Map of the Travels & Voyages of St. Paul |
Edward Wells (1667-1727) is identified on the title page as being Rector of Cotesbach, in Leicestershire, at the time of publication. He was the son of Edward Wells, vicar of Corsham, Wiltshire. He was inducted to the rectory of Cotesbach, Leicestershire, on January 2, 1702. Wells achieved distinction as a mathematician and geographer as well as a divine. He was a strong advocate of the orthodox position of the Church of England and engaged in polemics against Separatists, Presbyterians, and Dissenters. In 1713 he wrote a treatise defending the Church’s view of the Trinity against Arianism. Later, while the Rector of Bletchley, from 1716 until his death, he turned to the task of publishing a complete correction of the Authorized Version of the Bible.
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| Gulliver's Travels |
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels. New York: Heritage Press, 1950. 343 pages. Illustrations by Fritz Eichenberg. First published in 1726, Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships was written as political satire. It was published quickly (to avoid piracy), secretly (to avoid prosecution), and anonymously (again, prosecution). The book was immediately popular even though—or maybe because—the true identity of the titular author Lemuel Gulliver was a mystery. Authorship of the book was not publicly confirmed until 1735 when George Faulkner, an Irish publisher, printed a set of Swift's works, which included what by that point had become known simply as Gulliver's Travels. The story has become Brobdingnagian—of gigantic proportion—in that it has outsized its original anti-Whig political satire and become an enduring classic of English literature.
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| Songs of the Holy Land |
Stirling, William. Songs of the Holy Land. London: John Ollivier, 1848. 128 pages. A manuscript note on the first preliminary page reads: “First published in Edinburgh in 1846, only 50 copies printed. Second series, London, 1847, limited to 12 copies.” According to John Martin's Bibliographic Catalogue of Privately Printed Books, only 10 copies of this combined edition were printed on large-paper. Tipped in to this copy is an ALS presentation letter from the author dated 21 January 1848.
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| Presentation letter from the author |
Stirling wrote the poems and paraphrases included in Songs of the Holy Land while traveling through the Middle East. Numerous biblical passages are paraphrased, including several Psalms and a portion of the Song of Solomon. In the preliminary pages Stirling writes:
The following Poems were for the most part
written six years ago, during a journey through the countries to which they
relate. For those countries the Bible
will ever remain the most fascinating of guide-books. When read anew on the bosom of the river of
Egypt or under the shade of the monuments which skirt its banks, in the deserts
of Sinai or Edom, in the Holy Land itself, or within sight of the snowy peaks
of Lebanon, the venerable page resumes all the freshness and charm, which
neglect or too familiar use at home may perhaps have impaired.
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| A Journey to the Centre of the Earth |
Verne, Jules. A Journey to the Centre of the Earth. London: Griffith and Farran, 1872. 384 pages. Illustrations by Riou. First English edition. Verne's Voyage au centre de la Terre was first published in French in 1864. It was reissued in a revised and expanded edition in 1867 and translated into English in 1871 by an unknown translator.
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| Frontispiece and title page |
This copy is bound in full polished calf leather of the period with raised bands and gilt tooling on the spine. The end papers and all edges are marbled. This first edition title rarely shows up for sale today because when published it was quite expensive and few copies sold. Original copies were bound in full pictorial cloth. As was the custom in the late 19th century, many wealthy collectors upon purchase of a new book would immediately send it to their fine binder to have the book bound in leather with gilt tooling to match other books in their library. This copy most likely followed that path.
The collector purchased this copy from the estate of a
geology professor (interesting that he would have this title) about 40 years
ago for $8.00. When first editions
appear on the market today prices can vary from $8,000 to $25,000.
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| Around the World in Eighty Days |
Verne, Jules. Around the World in Eighty Days. New York: William Morrow (Books of Wonder), 1988. 242 pages. Illustrated by Barry Moser. Verne's Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours was first published in French in 1872 and translated into English in 1873. The story follows Phileas Fogg, a wealthy English gentleman, who wagers £20,000—half of his personal net worth—with a fellow member of a private club that he can circumnavigate the world in 80 days.
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| Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas |
Verne, Jules. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas. Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1875. 303 pages. With full-page illustrations. Author's edition, bound in the publisher's original decorative cloth. Verne's Vingt mille lieues sous les mers was originally serialized in Magasin d'éducation et de récréation (The Education and Recreation Store), a French literary periodical intended for children, from March 1869 through June 1870. It was first published in book form in 1870 and translated into English in 1873 by Lewis Page Mercier.
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| Sample illustrations |
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| The Time Machine |
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| The Opium Ship |
Jones, H. Bedford. The Opium Ship. Rockville, MD: The Wildside Press, 2005. 128 pages. Bedford's story was originally serialized in four parts in The Thrill Book, a popular pulp magazine, in 1919. It was not printed again until 2005, when it was published in book form by Wildside Press as part of their Pulp Classics reprints. The Opium Ship follows two Irishmen in the Philippines who have been shanghaied and forced to smuggle opium between the Philippines and Thailand.
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| Stamboul Train First issue (left) and second issue (right) |
Greene, Graham. Stamboul Train. London: William Heinemann, 1932. 307 pages. First edition, first printing, first issue. A rare copy of the title before textual alterations were made by the author at the publisher's behest.
Greene, Graham. Stamboul
Train. London: William Heinemann,
1932. 307 pages. First edition, first printing, second
issue. The first commercially available
edition sold by the publisher.
A self-important popular novelist, a wealthy fruit merchant,
an aging socialist leader, and a young chorus girl all board the luxurious
Orient Express in Ostend. A lesbian
couple—a hard-drinking journalist and the daughter of a prominent
businessman—and a fleeing murderer board the train along the way, and these
seven strangers all interact and interfere in each other's lives as they travel
to Constantinople. Most of them arrive
safely at their intended destination.
The self-important novelist character—Q. C. Savory—nearly
derailed the publication of Stamboul Train. The real-life popular author J. B. Priestley
obtained a proof copy of Greene's forthcoming novel and interpreted the pompous,
self-regarding, pipe smoking writer with "blunt fingers" as a vicious
parody of himself and threatened Heinemann, his own publisher, with a libel
action. Heinemann forced Greene to make
a number of minor changes to the character and his name—Q. C. Savory became
Quin Savory—to mollify Priestley.
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| A modified page First issue (left) and second issue (right) |
Heinemann ordered an initial printing of 15,000 copies of Stamboul Train, and 13,000 copies were already bound when Priestley read the proof. The bound copies were disbound and then rebound once twenty modified pages were printed and substituted. Greene incurred most of the expense of the changes. A small handful of originally-bound copies somehow escaped the publisher; while the exact number is unknown it may be fewer than a dozen copies, as they were not missed by the publisher when the alterations were made. First issue copies of Stamboul Train, such as this one, are among the rarest of Greene collectibles.
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| The Hobbit |
Tolkien, J. R. R. The Hobbit. London: HarperCollins, 2012. 320 pages. 5th edition (Special collector's edition). First published in 1937, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again tells of Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit whose comfortable life is disturbed when a wizard and 13 dwarves whisk him away on an unexpected journey "there and back again." This special collector's edition was released concurrently with the 2012 film adaptation The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and features illustrations inspired by the film.
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| The Grapes of Wrath |
Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: The Viking Press, 1939. 464 pages. First edition. Set in the Great Depression, the story follows the Joad family, tenant farmers forced to leave their home in Oklahoma and head west to California in hope of a better life. In his own estimation, Steinbeck said there were "five layers" to his novel, one of which was "allusions to the Israelite's Exodus from Egypt and the trials of Christian Life." According to The New York Times, The Grapes of Wrath was the best-selling book of 1939. It won the National Book Award for favorite fiction (1939) and the Pulitzer Prize for fiction (1940). The Nobel Prize committee cited The Grapes of Wrath as one of the main reasons for granting Steinbeck the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962.
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| The Lord of the Rings |
Tolkien, J. R. R. The Lord of the Rings: Illustrated Edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021. 1,248 pages. First edition thus. The three books which make up The Lord of the Rings were first published in 1954 and 1955. This new omnibus—based on the reset edition published in 2020—is the first edition to be illustrated with artwork by J. R. R. Tolkien which he created as he wrote the books. The text is printed in two colors with full-color illustrations, with painted edges displaying Tolkien's runes.
The Lord of the Rings consists of three books—The
Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the
King—and recounts the great quest undertaken by the hobbit Frodo and the
Fellowship of the Ring—Gandalf the Wizard; the hobbits Merry, Pippin, and Sam;
Gimli the Dwarf; Legolas the Elf; Boromir of Gondor; and, Strider, the stranger—as
they perilously journey across Middle-earth to destroy the Ruling Ring by
casting it into the Cracks of Doom.
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| Travels With My Aunt |
Greene, Graham. Travels With My Aunt. New York: Bodley Head, 1969. 319 pages. Corrected proof copy. Thirty-seven years after Stamboul Train, Greene reboards the Orient Express during the travel adventures of Henry Pulling and his eccentric Aunt Augusta. Henry first meets his aunt when leaving the crematorium after his mother's cremation service. Drawn in by her persistence and her tales of adventure, Henry uproots his dull retirement life and sets out on a series of strange and sometimes perplexing escapades, including the long trip from Paris to Istanbul aboard the Orient Express. Throughout their misadventures, Henry begins to believe Aunt Augusta is not who she claims to be and is, in fact, his birth mother.
This copy came from the library of George Cukor and bears
his bookplate designed by Paul Landacre.
Cukor directed the 1972 film of the same name starring Maggie Smith as
Aunt Augusta and Alec McCowen as Henry Pulling.
The film adaptation begins faithfully enough to the book, but once
Augusta and Henry get off the Orient Express in Istanbul, the subsequent plot
and antics of Augusta and Henry are completely unrecognizable.
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| A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms |
Hodgart, Matthew. A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1970. 91 pages. Gulliver's Travels has inspired countless sequels, the first being published anonymously in 1727, only one year after Swift's original. In 1970 Hodgart added his own work to the ever-growing list. Written as "being the fifth part" of Gulliver's Travels, Hogdart's satire was poorly received.
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| Gone to Texas |
Carter, Forrest. Gone to Texas. New York: Delacorte Press, 1973. 206 pages. First edition thus. Gone to Texas was written by Asa Earl Carter under the pen name Forrest Carter. The book was first published in 1973 as The Rebel Outlaw: Josey Wales. It was rereleased as Gone to Texas in 1975, the same year it was adapted to film as The Outlaw Josey Wales. During the Civil War, Josey Wales, a farmer from Missouri, joins a group of Confederate guerillas to seek vengeance on a gang of Unionists who murdered his family. Refusing to surrender after the war, Wales, now an outlaw, sets out to make a new life for himself while also evading capture.
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| Monsignor Quixote |
Greene, Graham. Monsignor Quixote. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982. 223 pages. Advanced uncorrected proof. Greene's pastiche of Don Quixote follows a Catholic priest and a communist ex-mayor as they crisscross Spain and explore the country while debating Catholicism and communism. Both from a small town in La Mancha and both recently out of a job, Monsignor Quixote and his new friend, Sancho, cram into the priest's old SEAT 600—affectionately nicknamed Rocinante—and hit the road, finding their own contemporary equivalents of windmills and encountering both holy and unholy places and people along the way.
This copy bears the ownership signature of Martha Updike,
novelist John Updike's wife, on the preliminary page. While no documentation is available, the copy
was likely sent to John Updike in favor of a review or maybe a blurb. Updike never wrote about or commented on this
Greene title, but his wife appears to have claimed the proof copy as her own.
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| American Gods |
Gaiman, Neil. American Gods. New York: William Morrow, 2001. 465 pages. First edition.
Gaiman, Neil. American
Gods. New York: William Morrow, 2011. 529 pages.
Tenth anniversary edition. With a
special introduction by the author.
Includes the "author's preferred text" and 12,000 additional
words.
Gaiman's story follows Shadow across the country with his
mysterious boss, Mr. Wednesday, who is recruiting American manifestations of the
Old Gods to join him in battling the New American Gods. The book has won numerous fantasy and science
fiction awards including the Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novel (2002). The story has been adapted to a comic book
series as well as a television series.
In addition to planned sequels by the author, the characters and story
lines intersect with other Gaiman books.
