In 1946, Evelyn Waugh, like so many others before and since, predicted the end of travel writing. “I do not expect to see many travel books in the near future,” he wrote. Shocked and embittered by a war that had laid waste to Europe and produced technological innovations such as the jet engine, he lamented the imminent demise of the “old” kind of travel. In the new world of “displaced persons,” light-hearted journeys now seemed anomalous. “Never again, I suppose, shall we land on foreign soil with a letter of credit and passport and feel the world wide open before us.”
Yet despite this prognosis from Waugh-every bit as distinguished a travel writer as he was a novelist-travel literature would rise from the grave once more. If the first boom came in the Victorian era, during the height of the British empire, and the second occurred during the 1930s pomp of Waugh and contemporaries such as Robert Byron, Gerald Brenan and Peter Fleming, the 1970s and 1980s saw the genre reach new heights of popularity with the emergence of Bruce Chatwin, Paul Theroux, Colin Thubron and Jonathan Raban.
Now, though, all the paths ahead seem to have disappeared. With many younger writers of travel turning to history, biography or fiction, the genre has never felt so redundant. True, there is still a market for the lightweight entertainments tossed off by Pete McCarthy and Tony Hawks, but writers of the literary form seem to be staying at home. It is too early to declare its final death, but in bookstores across the country “travel literature” shelves are dwindling, publishing reps are finding accounts of journeys increasingly hard to place and sales are falling.
If you are a subscriber, please log in »
This article is available to subscribers only
Subscribing to Prospect is the most reliable and convenient way to receive the magazine every month, and offers the best value.Subscription Types:
Online
An online subscription offers you complete and unlimited access to the entire website, including our searchable archive of every back issue of Prospect, and a PDF edition of each new issue: all this for just £20 per year. Purchase an online subscription »Renewal
Renew an existing subscription »Institutional access
If you are a library, business organisation or any other large institution that needs a multi-user licence, you can obtain institutional access.
Share
Subscribe to post comments
Print
