Carl Thompson is Senior Lecturer in English at Nottingham Trent University.

"Given the popularity of travel studies and the quality of Thompson's effort, this book seems likely to become required reading for those interested in the genre. Summing Up: Highly recommended." - P. A. Riggle, Truman State University in CHOICE"...a really exceptional introduction to the genre ... as exhaustive in its coverage as it is scrupulous in its analysis of the different forms and effects of travel writing." Robert Spencer, University of Manchester, Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 48.4"This is an outstanding volume, cogently argued and intelligently illustrated. It is a highly recommended introduction for those curious about the subject, but will also constitute for those already familiar with the field a refreshing engagement with, and firm intervention in, contemporary scholarship on the form." Charles Forsdick, University of Liverpool, Studies in Travel Writing 17.1 "Carl Thompson’s Travel Writing is a concise, informative, and helpful introduction to the genre and the practice of travel writing study. Thompson offers a lucid and skillful orientation to the genre (introduction and chapter 1). The rich intellectual landscape he paints shows that travel writing scholarship deserves greater recognition than previously credited." Ryota Nishino, University of the South Pacific

• Introduction 1. Defining the Genre Exclusive and Inclusive Definitions of Travel Writing Traveller’s Tales: Fact and Fiction in Travel Writing The Cultural and Intellectual Status of Travel Writing 2. Travel Writing through the Ages: An Overview The Ancient World Medieval Travellers and Travel Writing Early Modern Travel Writing The Long Eighteenth Century, 1660-1837 The Victorian and Edwardian Periods, 1837-1914 Travel Writing from 1914 to the Present 3. Reporting the World Discoveries and Wonders: Some Perennial Problems in Travel Writing Shifting Protocols of Authentication and Plausibility Authority and Factuality in the Modern Travel Book 4. Revealing the Self Grand Tourists, Pilgrims and Questing Knights: Self-Fashioning in Addison’s Remarks on Italy (1705) and Ralegh’s Discoverie of Guiana (1596) Writing the Self: Travel Writing’s Inward Turn The Imperious ‘I’ 5. Representing the Other Strategies of Othering I: Travel Writing and Colonial Discourse Strategies of Othering II: Travel Writing in a Post/Neo-Colonial Era 6. Questions of Gender and Sexuality Masculinity, Travel and Travel Writing Women’s Travel Writing in the 18th and 19th Centuries: Performing Femininity on the Page Women Travellers and Colonialism Women’s Travel Writing Today