The Road To Oxiana Av Robert Byron

<p>A real-life adventure that inspired countless travellers in fact and fiction, the Penguin Classics edition of Robert Byron''s <i>The Road to Oxiana</i> includes an introduction by Colin Thubron.<br><br>In 1933 Robert Byron began a journey through the Middle East via Beirut, Jerusalem, Baghdad, and Teheran to Oxiana - the country of the Oxus, the ancient name for the river Amu Darya which forms part of the border between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. <i>The Road to Oxiana</i> offers not only a wonderful record of his adventures, but also a rare account of the architectural treasures of a region now inaccessible to most Western travelers. <br><br>Robert Byron (1905-41) was born in 1905, and educated at Eton and Merton College, Oxford. He died during the Second World War, when the ship he was serving on was torpedoed by a U-Boat off Cape Wrath. Byron''s <i>The Road to Oxiana</i> is considered by many modern travel writers to be the first example of great travel writing.<br><br>If you enjoyed <i>The Road to Oxiana </i>you might like Charles Darwin''s <i>The Voyage of the Beagle</i>, also available in Penguin Classics.<br><br>''The greatest of all pre-war travel books''<br>William Dalrymple<br><br>''What <i>Ulysses</i> is to the novel between the wars, and what ''The Waste Land'' is to poetry, <i>The Road to Oxiana</i> is to the travel book''<br>Paul Fussell<br><br>''In any list of the great travel books of the 20th century, Robert Byron''s account of his travels in Persia and Afghanistan, <i>The Road to Oxiana</i>, must be put somewhere near the very top''<br><i>Telegraph</i></p>