Question-  What is Travelogue ? Mention two books that belong to this class of literature.

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Write a short note on Travelogue.

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What does the term Travelogue' mean? Give its distinctive  features.

Ans-

Travelogue

Literature dealing with travel is by no means new, but has become increasingly popular in recent years. For some readers it is a source of education and enlightenment, for others little more than entertainment and escape to a more romantic enviornment. The most common use of the term is for books recording journeys actually undertaken, whether for the purpose of collecting scientific data or material for a book. The more scientific writings concern themselves with physical features, flora and fauna, history, customs etc., the more popular with picturesque and the strange with adventurous or amusing incident and, above all, with personal impressions. Although classical literature provides examples of travel books, it was not until the period from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries embracing the Renaissance, with its many voyages of discovery and the invention of printing that their real popularity began. With this period we associate the names of the travel writers Marco Polo, Mandeville Hakluyt, Purchas, closer to our own time are Doughty (Arabia Deserta), Kinglake (Eothen), Stevenson (Travels with Donkey), Belloc (The Path to Rome), Lawrence (Seven Pillars of Wisdom). These have achieved literary distinction, but perhaps more widely read have been H. L. Morton, Richard Malliburton, Freyn Stark and Peter Fleming. It should be noted that, apart form books about real journeys, many works of fiction have concerned themselves with travel. They range from the epic Odyssey to the Satiric. Gulliver's Travels and the modern Picaresque Juan in America.
Travel is almost a department of Autobiography. The old idea of a travel book was to tell wonderful things of far lands; but the world today is small and every child can see it in the Cinema and hear it on the wireless. The modern travel writer must be a man of original mind. English is extraordinarily rich in travel books. Some of the most skilful of English prose wirters in this century, Gissing, D.H. Lawrence and Norman Douglas, have written of Italy and the Mediterranean around it. Travel books in English are written of every part of the world. Those of the Himalayas, if mountaineering be included, are very fine; but the best are of Arabia, and the greatest of these are by Doughty and T.E. lawrence. Travel books reveal the character of the author.
Literature dealing with travel is by no means new, but has become increasingly popular in recent-year. For some readers it is a source of education and enlightenment, for others little more than entertainment and escape to a more romantic environment. the most common use of the term is for books recording Journeys actually undertaken, whether for the purpose of collecting scientific data or material for a book. The more scientific writings concern themselves with physical features, flora and fauna, history, customs, etc., the more popular (e.g. Forbidden Journey, Maillart) with the picturesque and the strange, with adventure or amusing incident and, above all, with personal impressions. Although classical literature provides examples of travel books, it was not until the period from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries embracing the Renaissance, with its many voyages of discovery and the invention of printing, that their real popularity began. With this period we associate the names of the travel writers, Macro Polo, Mandeville, Hakluyt, Purchas.

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