A Corkscrew Is Most Useful: The Travellers of Empire

In the early 19th Century there was a huge surge forward in travel of all kinds. Queen Victoria’s accession in 1837 came barely a year after John Murray’s first guidebook was published. Then in 1838 Bradshaw’s famous portable railway timetable appeared. In 1841 Thomas Cook, the world’s first travel agent, organised its first tour (from London to Leicester and back by train). The age of mass tourism had arrived.

Side by side with it another phenomenom began to develop: exploration to wilder shores and uncharted lands. This is the focus of Nicholas Murray’s fascinating book which draws upon the extraordinary stories of Livingstone’s journey across Africa; Burton and Speke reaching Lake Tanganyika; John Stuart crossing Australia from south to north; Livingstone reaching the Zambezi; Richard Burton’s travels across Arabia, and countless others’ extraordinary and brave expeditions.