A Corkscrew Is Most Useful: The Travellers of Empire

(Hardback)

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Description

At the height of the British Empire, countless travellers set off to explore the globe, at the very same moment that the phenomenon of mass tourism was being launched by a certain Mr Thomas Cook.

Their reasons for leaving Britain were many and various. They were searching for knowledge, for adventure, for fame, for exotic animals to kill. Some hoped to be the first to stamp their mark upon a lake, a river source or an unknown inland sea, while others dreamed of finding untold natural riches or ancient works of art. Some were soldiers, sailors, spies, scholars or scientists, and some wished to convert the heathen and spread their religion. And some travelled, as people have always done, for no reason at all except the sheer marvellous enjoyment of it.

Drawing on the travellers' own unique and colourful accounts, from Livingstone and Stanley in Africa, Darwin aboard the Beagle and Richard Francis Burton on the road to Mecca to less well-known but equally intrepid explorers, A CORKSCREW IS MOST USEFUL is a fascinating odyssey.

Reviews

Praise for KAFKA: **'A soulful, searching book, faultlessly researched and beautifully written' OBSERVER ** 'Sound, compact, refreshingly judicious' SUNDAY TIMES ** 'Murray's portrait is necessarily various and surely the most truthful available ... a fine biography' THE TIMES ** 'When Murray quotes from him, you want to rush off and read more instantly. This makes Kafka the best kind of literary biography' INDEPENDENT

Author Bio

Nicholas Murray is the acclaimed biographer of Victorian poet and critic MATTHEW ARNOLD (Hodder), ANDREW MARVELL, ALDOUS HUXLEY and KAFKA.