Nineteenth-Century Travel Writing
Morley Roberts (1857-1942) was an English writer and novelist who published a wide range of works. Land-Travel and Sea-Faring chronicled Roberts’ experiences in Victoria and New South Wales as a young man in the late 1870s, originally published in the Cornhill, Murray's Magazine, and the Field. Conversational in tone, it described the passage to Australia, life in the colonies, flora and fauna, and the people Roberts encountered. It was illustrated by A. D. McCormick. Roberts’ journey to Australia was the first of his many travels to continental Europe, North and Central America, South Africa, and the Pacific Islands, many of which were published as travel narratives. An educated, entertaining, and prolific writer (best known for The Western Avernus [1887], about his American travels), Roberts was adventurous in his travel: he travelled to Australia by steerage (he could have afforded better) and worked his return voyage as a sailor “before the mast.”
