Charles M. Doughty's Travels in Arabia Deserta (1888) is an enduring contribution to the vast body of English travel literature. Doughty was one of the first Europeans to penetrate the interior of Arabia, and Travels in Arabia Deserta, his masterpiece, is both a memorable adventure story and an important scientific document. T.E. Lawrence called it "the first and indispensable work upon the Arabs of the desert." Its accuracy was such that it was used as a military textbook for Britain's campaign against the Turks in World War I. More important, in Travels in Arabia Deserta Doughty worked at forging a new prose style in an attempt to revitalize what he saw as corrupt Victorian English.

As Doughty said, "The book is not milk for babes": it is long, digressive, and detailed; many readers have found its style impenetrable and idiosyncratic. Yet, by drawing from Spenser, Chaucer, the Bible...