Writing Geographical Exploration summarizes the various factors that influence the writing and interpretation of exploration narratives, demonstrating the limitations of the assumption that there is a direct relationship between what the explorer saw and what the text describes.
Davies offers a revisionist evaluation of Captain Thomas James, who spent eighteen months in search of the Northwest Passage in the 1630s, to illustrate how modern textual analysis can enrich the appreciation of a traveller's account. Though James's work has been dismissed in the modern period, his work was highly regarded in previous centuries by scientist Robert Boyle and poet Samuel Coleridge.
James was not a first-rank explorer, but he was an able navigator and leader, a perceptive scientific observer, and a master author who produced a thrilling tale of adventure that should occupy a more prominent place in exploration writing and history, literary theory, and post-modern geography.
- ISBN10 1552380629
- ISBN13 9781552380628
- Publish Date 30 April 2002
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country CA
- Imprint University of Calgary Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 344
- Language English