Travelers' Tales Classics – serie

Long out of print, this is a riveting firsthand account of Leonard Clark’s search for the legendary lost Seven Cities of Cibola — reputedly home to enormous reserves of gold — in the rain forest east of the Peruvian Andes. A former U.S. Army intelligence officer, Clark is joined on his expedition by Inez Pokorny, a gutsy, multilingual female explorer. Their treacherous journey includes encounters with head-hunting Jivaro Indians, man-eating jaguars, 40-foot-long anacondas, poisonous plants, and shamanistic healers. Against the odds, Clark and Pokorny reach their destination, but nearly starve to death trying to transport sacks of gold out of the dense tropical foliage.

When Richard Halliburton graduated from college, he chose adventure over a career, traveling the world with almost no money. The Royal Road to Romance chronicles what happened as a result, from a breakthrough Matterhorn ascent to being jailed for taking forbidden pictures on Gibraltar. "One of the most fascinating books of its kind ever written." - Detroit News

This classic travel book details Isabella Bird's 1878 trip, where she set out alone to explore the interior of Japan - a rarity not only because of Bird's sex but because the country was virtually unknown to Westerners. The Japan she describes is not the sentimental world of Madame Butterfly but a vibrant land of real people with a complex culture and hardscrabble lives.

Long out of print, this is a riveting firsthand account of Leonard Clark’s search for the legendary lost Seven Cities of Cibola — reputedly home to enormous reserves of gold — in the rain forest east of the Peruvian Andes. A former U.S. Army intelligence officer, Clark is joined on his expedition by Inez Pokorny, a gutsy, multilingual female explorer. Their treacherous journey includes encounters with head-hunting Jivaro Indians, man-eating jaguars, 40-foot-long anacondas, poisonous plants, and shamanistic healers. Against the odds, Clark and Pokorny reach their destination, but nearly starve to death trying to transport sacks of gold out of the dense tropical foliage.

Following the recent publication of Jan Morris’s final book, here is her very first. Fresh from her success reporting on the first Everest ascent in 1953, she spent a year journeying by car, train, ship, and aircraft across the United States. “I did not know it then, and nor did America, but chance had brought me across the Atlantic at the very apex of American happiness,” writes Morris in her new introduction. The author was then James Morris, and America’s identity was different then, too. In brilliant prose, Morris records with exuberance and wonder a time of innocence in America. “The prose sparkles, and everything [Morris] tells glitters.” — San Francisco Chronicle