Literature Atlas

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Theme
Genre

Travel Literature

Nonfiction and Documentary Prose

Travel literature, or the travelogue, is a genre encompassing outdoor literature, guidebooks, nature writing and travel memoirs, expressed across many forms including poems, books, memoirs, biographies, novels and journals. Some travel literature consists of fictional adventures drawn from the author's own experience, while other works, such as guidebooks, contain only factual information about a given place.

Facts
Place of Origin
No single origin; early travel writing spans many traditions, including Petrarch's 1336 ascent of Mont Ventoux, one of the earliest known records of travelling and writing about it purely for pleasure. 1
Notable Example
Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days, a classic of adventure literature within the travel genre. 1
Defining Trait
Encompasses outdoor literature, guide books, nature writing and travel memoirs, spanning poems, journals, novels and blogs. 1
Connections

Form Of Genre

Sources
1. Travel Literature (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation
  • en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travel_literature, lead paragraph, first sentence
    The genre of travel literature or travelogue encompasses outdoor literature, guide books, nature writing, and travel memoirs.
  • en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travel_literature, History section, Petrarch passage
    One of the earliest known records of taking pleasure in travel, of travelling for the sake of travel and writing about it, is Petrarch's (1304-1374) ascent of Mont Ventoux in 1336.
  • en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travel_literature, Adventure literature section
    Jules Verne's adventure novels are classical examples of adventure literature. Some of his most famous novels are Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in Eighty Days.
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