Folio Archives 388: Rare Adventures and Painful Peregrinations of William Lithgow 1974
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1wcarter
The Rare Adventures and Painful Peregrinations of William Lithgow 1974.
Scotsman William Lithgow was found inappropriately involved with a local lady and her brothers cut off his ears as punishment. He immediately left his home in Lanark for a voyage around the Orkney and Shetland islands, but to avoid further repercussions, in 1609 he set off on the first of his three major peregrinations.
Over the next 19 years he journeyed across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, describing his experiences, the people and places in fascinating detail. From Jerusalem to Lisbon, Morocco to Stockholm and Cairo to Paris he criss-crossed the Mediterranean and its surrounds.
He was robbed and left naked in a forest in Romania, attacked by pirates in the Aegean, feted by monarchs in Constantinople and ambassadors in Paris, and sought shelter from peasants in remote regions of the Alps. His story is quite extraordinary and shows the perils, and joys, of travel 400 years ago. His journeys only ended when, as a staunch and vocal Protestant, he was imprisoned by the Spanish inquisition on Majorca, broken on the rack and left crippled.
I found this to be a remarkable travelogue, and thus a rapid read, that shows that our modern world is not nearly as unsafe as life was centuries ago.
The 292 page book is edited and introduced by Gilbert Phelps. There is colour frontispiece map of Europe which is decorative but useless for following Lithgow’s journeys, but within the book there are four line drawn maps that show the places he visited. The internal decorations are nine full-page woodcuts from the first edition of 1632. The page tops stained brown and it is bound in dark green buckram with a cover and spine design in yellow and gold. The yellow textured slipcase measures 23.1x15cm.
. . . .
An index of the other illustrated reviews in the "Folio Archives" series can be viewed here.
Scotsman William Lithgow was found inappropriately involved with a local lady and her brothers cut off his ears as punishment. He immediately left his home in Lanark for a voyage around the Orkney and Shetland islands, but to avoid further repercussions, in 1609 he set off on the first of his three major peregrinations.
Over the next 19 years he journeyed across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, describing his experiences, the people and places in fascinating detail. From Jerusalem to Lisbon, Morocco to Stockholm and Cairo to Paris he criss-crossed the Mediterranean and its surrounds.
He was robbed and left naked in a forest in Romania, attacked by pirates in the Aegean, feted by monarchs in Constantinople and ambassadors in Paris, and sought shelter from peasants in remote regions of the Alps. His story is quite extraordinary and shows the perils, and joys, of travel 400 years ago. His journeys only ended when, as a staunch and vocal Protestant, he was imprisoned by the Spanish inquisition on Majorca, broken on the rack and left crippled.
I found this to be a remarkable travelogue, and thus a rapid read, that shows that our modern world is not nearly as unsafe as life was centuries ago.
The 292 page book is edited and introduced by Gilbert Phelps. There is colour frontispiece map of Europe which is decorative but useless for following Lithgow’s journeys, but within the book there are four line drawn maps that show the places he visited. The internal decorations are nine full-page woodcuts from the first edition of 1632. The page tops stained brown and it is bound in dark green buckram with a cover and spine design in yellow and gold. The yellow textured slipcase measures 23.1x15cm.
. . . .
An index of the other illustrated reviews in the "Folio Archives" series can be viewed here.
2HonorWulf
Wow, that's an insane story! I've never heard of it before, so thank you (once again) for posting about these fascinating gems!
3Betelgeuse
>1 wcarter: Thank you for this, I picked up a copy on eBay!
4N11284
" Busy at venereal tilting with their new mistresses". Now that's a new way of putting it. :-) :-)
5astropi
I almost feel like a book of this quality today would only be published as a "limited edition"...sigh. As always, appreciate the amazing pictures :)
6elladan0891
>1 wcarter: Thanks for enabling! Ordered and looking forward to getting my hands on it. The same seller also happened to be offering a copy of the 1957 Galley Slave - another edition that was in my wish list thanks to the Folio Archives series. It also happened to appear to be in the best condition out of any copy I've seen offered in the US in the past few years, so I happily bought it too, and for absolute peanuts.
I find such obscure personal narrations far more fascinating than modern pop history.
I find such obscure personal narrations far more fascinating than modern pop history.
