Penguin Classics: Travel & Adventure

The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux is a captivating travelogue that chronicles the author's epic journey by rail across Asia. This remarkable narrative details Theroux's exploits on some of the most iconic and legendary train routes in the world. From the Direct-Orient Express, the Khyber Pass Local, and the Delhi Mail from Jaipur, to the Golden Arrow to Kuala...

In 1960, nearly 60 years old and feeling detached from the landscapes and people of America, Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck embarked on a bold journey to reconnect with his homeland. He set out in a custom-built three-quarter-ton pickup truck, which he fondly named Rocinante after Don Quixote's noble steed. Aboard this miniature ship’s cabin and with only his loyal...

The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin is a compelling firsthand account of the young naturalist's earth-shattering expedition aboard the HMS Beagle. Setting sail from Devonport on 27 December 1831, the twenty-two-year-old Darwin embarked on a journey that would reshape the world of science. Though initially a leisurely voyage along the South American coast, the adventure broadened into a...

Fifty new books at £1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry. See my hand up-tipped, learn the secret of my human heart... Soaring, freewheeling snapshots of life on the road across America, from the Beat writer who inspired a generation.

New to the Penguin Pocket Hardbacks series - books that have changed the history of thought, in sumptuous, clothbound editions. In his perfectly crafted haiku poems, Basho described the natural world with great simplicity and delicacy of feeling. When he composed The Narrow Road to the Deep North he was a serious student of Zen Buddhism, setting off on a...

An iconic bestseller, The Motorcycle Diaries is Che Guevara's account of his youthful adventures travelling around South America on his motorcycle. "All we could see was the dust on the road ahead and ourselves on the bike, devouring kilometres in our flight northward" In late 1951, Guevara and Alberto Granado set off on the 500cc Norton they nicknamed La Poderosa...

New to Penguin Classics In 1933 Robert Byron began a journey through the Middle East via Beirut, Jerusalem, Baghdad, and Teheran to Oxiana—the country of the Oxus, the ancient name for the river Amu Darya which forms part of the border between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. The Road to Oxiana offers not only a wonderful record of his adventures,...

In 1940, John Steinbeck sailed in a sardine boat with his friend, the biologist Edward F. Ricketts, to collect marine invertebrates from the beaches of the Gulf of California. The day-to-day story of the trip is given in the log, which combines science, philosophy, and high-spirited adventure. This edition also includes Steinbeck’s profile of his fellow traveller.

The gripping true story of one man's ten-year expedition from a village in West Africa to the Arctic Circle - a rare gem of travel writing which has inspired a generation. 'The play of moonlight on the icebergs was indescribably strange, and its magnificent refracted shimmers were brighter than day. One night, fooled by its brilliance, I got up at...

A fascinating collection of medieval Arabic travel writing, translated into English by Paul Lunde and Caroline Stone. In 922 AD, an Arab envoy from Baghdad named Ibn Fadlan encountered a party of Viking traders on the upper reaches of the Volga River. In his subsequent report on his mission, he gave a meticulous and astonishingly objective description of Viking customs,...

New to Black Classics for this Classic Travel Book, with a new introduction by Jon Lee Anderson. During the years he spent among the Marsh Arabs of southern Iraq, Wilfred Thesiger came to understand, admire, and share a way of life that had endured for many centuries. Travelling from village to village by canoe, he won acceptance by dispensing medicines...

A rich and exquisite anthology that illuminates Japanese travel over a thousand years Shortlisted for the NSW Translation Prize Discover a realm of travel writing undreamed of in the West - a richly literary tradition extending through a thousand years and more, whose individual works together weave a dense and beautiful brocade of repeated patterns and motifs, tones and textures....

The first new translation in over 400 years of one of the great works of the Renaissance — an African diplomat's guide to Africa. In 1518, al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan, a Moroccan diplomat, was seized by pirates while travelling in the Mediterranean. Brought before Pope Leo X, he was persuaded to convert to Christianity, in the process taking the name...

A magical, substantially true narrative of piracy, zoology, anthropology, danger and adventure in the seventeenth-century Caribbean, Pacific and East Indies The first great English-language travel book, A New Voyage Round the World (1697) is an incomparably vivid, chaotic and fascinating account by the pirate, explorer and naturalist William Dampier of his many adventures. The world he describes sprawls all the...

New to Black Classics Wilfred Thesiger was born in Addis Ababa in 1910 and educated at Eton and Oxford. Though British, he was repulsed by the softness and rigidity of Western life, "the machines, the calling cards, the meticulously aligned streets, etc." In the spirit of T.E. Lawrence, Thesiger spent five years exploring and wandering the deserts of Arabia. With...

Fifty new books at £1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry. Like rotting stakes in a forest clearing The great journalist of conflict in the Third World finds an even stranger and more exotic society in his own home of post-War Poland.

The Old Patagonian Express by Paul Theroux is a captivating narrative that chronicles an extraordinary train journey through the heartlands of North and South America. Starting from the bustling subway system of Boston, Theroux embarks on an epic adventure, travelling from the frigid landscapes of Massachusetts to the sun-soaked and windswept plains of Patagonia. Each stage of this journey brings...

Ostensibly written by an English knight, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville purport to relate his experiences in the Holy Land, Egypt, India, and China. Mandeville claims to have served in the Great Khan's army and to have travelled in the lands beyond—countries populated by dog-headed men, cannibals, Amazons, and Pygmies. Although Marco Polo's slightly earlier narrative ultimately proved more...

An exuberant account of Henry Miller's trip to the US. Henry Miller always said that his best writing was in his letters, and this missive to his friend Alfred Perles is an exuberant, humorous account of his visit to New York in 1935 and return to Europe aboard a Dutch ship. Despite its high repute among Miller devotees, Aller Retour...

Little Black Classics - the new series to celebrate Penguin's 80th anniversary You will hear it for yourselves, and it will surely fill you with wonder... Explore the fascinating travels and adventures chronicled in Travels in the Land of Serpents and Pearls by Marco Polo. Delve into tales that will captivate your imagination and transport you to distant lands filled...