Golden legends : images of Abyssinia, Samuel Johnson to Bob Marley
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Golden legends : images of Abyssinia, Samuel Johnson to Bob Marley
Stanford General Books, 2008
Available at / 3 libraries
-
No Libraries matched.
- Remove all filters.
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 153-160) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
From the eighteenth century to the present, travellers, explorers, journalists, imaginative writers like Samuel Johnson, and legendary reggae musician Bob Marley have shared a fascination with Abyssinia. So did even earlier writers and mapmakers, who thought Abyssinia was the land of the mythical (and fabulously rich) Christian ruler, Prester John.
The principal subject of this book is the allure of the exotic, as represented by Abyssinia, to the British imagination. In addition to Johnson and Marley, some others included are the eighteenth-century Scot James Bruce, nineteenth-century explorer Richard Burton, author Evelyn Waugh, Wilfred Thesiger (best known of twentieth-century British explorers), Sylvia Pankhurst (crusading journalist and daughter of the suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst), and the contemporary Irish traveller Dervla Murphy. The author also considers the beginnings of anthropology and the variations of quest narrative in modern travel writing.
Table of Contents
Prelude: Jamaica, 1981 1 Chapter 1 The Call of Abyssinia: Father Lobo, Samuel Johnson, and Rasselas 3 Chapter 2 "Going Native": James Bruce, Mansfield Parkyns, Richard Burton 16 Interlude: Maqdala 53 Chapter 3 Barbaric Splendors, Golden Legends: Wilfred Thesiger, Evelyn Waugh, Sylvia Pankhurst 66 Chapter 4 "I'm Going to Ethiopia": Recent Visitors 96 Chapter 5 Remembering Zion 127 Postlude: Very Fast Running 140 Notes 143 Works Cited 153 Index 161
by "Nielsen BookData"
