In 1843 publisher John Murray made what he was later to call his greatest error of professional judgment: he rejected the manuscript of a travel book by a London barrister named Alexander William Kinglake. Eothen; or, Traces of Travel Brought Home from the East was published the following year and almost immediately went into three editions. It had undergone more than thirty printings by the end of the century and has appeared in as many twentieth-century editions. Today the book is still in demand and is available in paperback editions. Eothen is not only one of the most popular travel books ever written, but also one of the most influential on travel writing as a literary form. It transformed the travelogue from a tediously detailed narrative annotated with statistical data into a personal and impressionistic account of the travel experience. Although it was Kinglake's only travel book--his only book...