Un petit tour dans l'Hindou Kouch

This outstanding collection of pieces, illustrated with his own superb photographs, is a unique record of Newby's travels all over the globe - and a lasting tribute to lost and fading worlds.

 One of the funniest and most entertaining of all travel writers, Eric Newby has been wandering the by-ways of the world for over half a century.

 Admired for his exceptional powers of observation, Newby's genius is also to capture the unexpected, the curious and the absurd on camera.

 Since his very first journey in 1938, Newby's quest for the unknown and the unusual has been insatiable. Whether on a dangerous canoe trip down the Wakwayowkastic River, with the pastoral people in the mountainous north of Spain, or visiting the exotic archipelago of Fiji, nothing escapes his eye for unlikely or amusing detail.

 A rare combination of travel writing and photography, What the Traveller Saw is an exhilarating record of Newby's humourous adventures over the years.

What the Traveller Saw

More episodes from the life and travels of one of our most celebrated travel writers.

 This latest book demonstrates exactly why Newby has become a national treasure - his love of the unknown, the unusual and the totally absurd, combined with his sharp observation and glorious wit, are here for both his loyal audience and new admirers to relish.

 Like this book, Newby's life has been episodic, a string of situations into which he has thrown himself with verve, humour and fortitude. With pieces about England, India, Italy, Yemen, Turkey and Holland, among many other places, Departures and Arrivals will be hailed as another triumph of travel literature.

 From Barnes to Beijing, Syria to Shekhavati, Purbeck to Palio, Newby and his most faithful travelling companion and wife, Wanda, never fail to delight and inform.

Departures and Arrivals

A chronicle of travels, some homely some exotic, from the man who can make a schoolboy holiday in Swanage as colourful as a walk in the Hindu Kush.

 Eric Newby's life of travel began in 1919, on pram-ride adventures with his mother into the dark streets of Barnes and the chaotic jungles of Harrods, and progressed to solo, school-bound adventures around the slums of darkest Hammersmith. His interest piqued, Newby's wanderlust snowballed, and his adventures multiplied, as he navigated the London sewer system, bicycled to Italy and meandered the wilds of New York's Broadway. Whether travelling abroad as a high-fashion buyer for a British department store or for pure adventure as a travel writer, even when reluctantly participating in a tiger shoot in India, Newby chronicles his adventures with verve, humour and infectious enthusiasm.

 After nine years as the travel editor for the Observer, Newby reluctantly gave up the post, eschewing the new form of human-as-freight travel. However, this change was certainly no pity for his readers, as the latter-day Newby continued on his unwavering quest for fascinating detail and adventure wherever he roamed, whether on two feet or two wheels. 'A Traveller's Life' chronicles the incredible adventures of one of the best-loved tour guides in the history of travel writing.

A Traveller’s Life

With his trademark charm and sharp wit, Newby leaves no stone unturned in his quest for wonderfully detailed and quirky knowledge to share with his reader. Insightful, hilarious and sheer fun, this is an adventure not to be missed, by Britain's best-loved travel guide, and father of the genre.

 'Why don't you start in Naples and go clockwise round the Mediterranean instead of dashing off in all directions like a lunatic?' Fortunately, Eric Newby followed his wife Wanda's advice, and so begins the wonderfully madcap adventure, 'On the Shores of the Mediterranean'.

 Beginning during the Newbys' wine harvest in Tuscany, the adventurous but disaster-prone pair follow a path using every form of transportation conceivable (public bus, taxi, foot, bike, boat), from Naples to Venice, along the Adriatic to Greece, Turkey, Jerusalem and North Africa, from sipping wildly extravagant cocktails in San Marco to being cordially invited to Libya by Colonel Gaddafi.

On the Shores of the Mediterranean

Lorsque, en 1956, Eric Newby décide de partir pour le Nuristan, cette région particulièrement accidentée et sauvage de l'Afghanistan, il ignore tout des Afghans, de l'alpinisme et, pour tout dire, des voyages... Son humour légendaire et un sens pratique insoupçonné lui permettront d'échapper aux pires traquenards. Un chef-d'oeuvre d'humour british, par l'une des figures les plus populaires du travel-writing.

'Slowly Down the Ganges' is seen as a vintage Newby masterpiece, alongside 'A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush' and 'Love and War in the Apennines'. Told with Newby's self-deprecating humour and wry attention to detail, this is a classic of the genre and a window into an enchanting piece of history.

 On his forty-forth birthday, Eric Newby sets out on an incredible journey: to travel the 1, 200-mile length of India's holy river. In a misguided attempt to keep him out of trouble, Wanda, his life-long travel companion and wife, is to be his fellow boatwoman. Their plan is to begin in the great plain of Hardwar and finish in the Bay of Bengal, but the journey almost immediately becomes markedly slower and more treacherous than either had imagined - running aground sixty-three times in the first six days.

 Travelling in a variety of unstable boats, as well as by rail, bus and bullock cart, and resting at sandbanks and remote villages, the Newbys encounter engaging characters and glorious mishaps, including the non-existence of large-scale maps of the country, a realisation that questions of pure 'logic' cause grave offense and, on one occasion, the only person in sight for miles is an old man who is himself unsure where he is. Newby's only consolation: on a river, if you go downstream, you're sure to end up somewhere.

Un petit tour dans l'Hindou Kouch

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