Reproduction of the original: Tales of a Traveller by Washington Irving

Most of us, at various moments in our lives, either adopt a `tourist' identity of are framed within another's tourist experience. Travellers' Tales investigates the future for travelling in a world whose boundaries are shifting and dissolving. The contributors bring together popular and critical discourses of travel to explore questions of identity and politics; history and narration; collecting and representing other cultures. Travellers' tales oscillate between the thrill of novel experiences and unexpected pleasures, and the alienation and loneliness of exile in a strange land. The contributions review recent work on the discourses of tourism, travel and cultural politics; the effects of global interactions and local resistances, and the ways in which records, memorials and signs have all been used to describe the experience of encountering the `other'.

Washington Irving (1783-1859) was an American author of the early nineteenth century. Best known for his short stories The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip van Winkle, he was also a prolific essayist, biographer and historian. He spoke fluent Spanish, which served him well in his writings on that country, and he could read several other languages, including German and Dutch. His first book was A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, by Diedrich Knickerbocker. He travelled on the Western frontier in the 1830s and recorded his glimpses of Western tribes in A Tour on the Prairies. He spoke against the mishandling of relations with the Native American tribes by Europeans and Americans. He popularized the nickname "Gotham" for New York City, and is credited with inventing the expression "the Almighty dollar."

"There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse; as I have found in traveling in a stage coach, that it is often a comfort to shift one's position and be bruised in a new place." ― Washington Irving, Tales of a Traveller This is a collection of short stories that the author wrote while living in Europe. It begins with a series of ghost stories, then tells the back stories of s number of people from literary scholars to Italian bandits, and finishes with a group of stories about treasure hunting in New England. An impressive read of portraits of lives from all parts of the world and many different walks of life. Washington Irving was an American author, essayist, biographer and historian of the early 19th century. He began his literary career at the age of nineteen by writing newspaper articles under the pseudonym Jonathan Oldstyle. In 1809, he published The History of New York under his most popular public persona, Diedrich Knickerbocker. Irving is best known for his short stories The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle, both of which appear in his book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., which he published in 1819. Irving's historical works include a five volume biography of George Washington (after whom he was named) as well as biographies of Oliver Goldsmith, Muhammad, and several histories of 15th-century Spain dealing with subjects such as Christopher Columbus, the Moors, and the Alhambra. Irving felt a strong connection to Spain and was appointed by President John Tyler to serve as the first Spanish speaking U.S. minister to Spain from 1842 to 1846.

Tales of a Traveller, by Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (1824) is a collection of essays and short stories composed by Washington Irving while he was living in Europe, primarily in Germany and Paris.