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The West Indies and the Spanish Main / Anthony Trollope ; intro. by Fred D'Aguair.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Trollope, Anthony, 1815-1882.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Trollope, Anthony, 1815-1882--Travel--West Indies.
- Trollope, Anthony.
- Trollope, Anthony, 1815-1882.
- Travel.
- West Indies.
- Trollope, Anthony, 1815-1882--Travel--Central America.
- Central America.
- West Indies--Description and travel.
- West Indies, British--Description and travel.
- West Indies, British.
- Central America--Description and travel.
- Trollope, Anthony, 1815-1882--Journeys--Caribbean Area.
- Trollope, Anthony, 1815-1882--Journeys--Central America.
- Caribbean Area--Description and travel.
- Local Subjects:
- Trollope, Anthony, 1815-1882--Journeys--Caribbean Area.
- Trollope, Anthony, 1815-1882--Journeys--Central America.
- Caribbean Area--Description and travel.
- Central America--Description and travel.
- Physical Description:
- viii, 371 pages ; 21 cm
- Place of Publication:
- New York : Carroll & Graf, 1999.
- Summary:
- Coping with ill-iced claret, rotten walnuts, and withered apples, British Postal Service employee and successful Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope sailed aboard the Atrato from the English port of Southampton to Kingston, Jamaica, in November 1858, to survey land and conclude treaties in the West Indies and Central America for the English government. In the course of his extended sojourn, he also wrote a book -- not about official business but rather about the islands he visited and the people he met; about breathtaking landscapes, exotic foods, the tropical climate, earthquakes, Panamanian railroads, Cuban cigars, racial hierarchies, and colonial customs.
- Celebrated travel writer Paul Theroux greatly admires this particular volume for its dialogue and description, neither of which will disappoint its readers, as Trollope's wonderfully observant eye is matched by an ear sensitive to the island rhythms of speech and dialect. More unwittingly, Trollope's genuine affection for Jamaican women in their broadbrimmed hats, cotton gloves, and starched muslin as well as for every sort of man from Haiti's imposing Emperor Soulouque to the laborers in the endless cane fields is also wed to the cultural biases and assumptions of his time, which illuminate more fully many of the racial and colonial problems that have plagued ours. Trollope provides us not only a remarkable and entertaining travel book but also an invaluable historical and cultural document.
- ISBN:
- 0786706384
- OCLC:
- 41388375
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