The Road to Oxiana

'What Ulysses is to the novel between the wars and what The Waste Land is to poetry, The Road to Oxiana is to the travel book.' Paul Fussell, Abroad

A brilliantly-wrought expression of a thoroughly modern sensibility, a portrait of an accidental man adrift between frontiers

The Road to Oxiana is part travelogue, part aesthetic manifesto and part social observation; it remains the most thoroughly readable of all books. And Byron is the ideal companion, witty, charming, irascible, and content to leave and be left alone

The Road to Oxiana is an informed, somewhat high-flown account of the early Islamic architecture of Persia and Afghanistan wrapped in a comic narrative that ensured a far wider readership... Funny, didactic and biting, Byron's masterpiece transports us across the world and, better still, across the decades to splendidly alien lands

My favourite travel book is Robert Byron's The Road To Oxiana, which started a new wave of travel writing. I took it on my first trip to Iran. I always take books about the places I'm visiting: I sat in a ruined mosque now populated by sheep and read Byron's wonderful descriptions of it. I think that sowed a seed for the Travel Bookshop

Sarah Anderson, founder of The Travel Bookshop

I love literary travel books and this is the best one in the English language. Scholarly, eccentric and wildly opinionated

Byron's account of travelling in the Middle East in 1933-34 paints an unparalleled portrait of the region and its people

Robert Byron was born in England in 1905 into a family distantly related to Lord Byron. He attended Eton and Merton College, Oxford, and wrote several other travel books before his untimely death in 1941 when his ship to West Africa was torpedoed while serving as a correspondent for a London newspaper during World War II. Among his other books are The Station (1928), The Byzantine Achievement (1929), and First Russia, Then Tibet (1933).

Discover the ultimate in classic 1930s travel writing. 
 
'A writer of breathtaking prose – prose whose sensuous, chiselled beauty has cast its spell on English travel writing ever since' William Dalrymple 
 
 In 1933, the delightfully eccentric, Robert Byron set out on a journey through the Middle East via Beirut, Jerusalem, Baghdad and Tehran to Oxiana – the country of the Oxus, the ancient name for the river Amu Darya which formed part of the border between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. His journey ended in what is now Peshawar, Pakistan. 
While his arrival at his destination, the legendary tower of Qabus, is a wonder, the journey itself is a captivating, quirky record of his adventures and a rare account of the architectural treasures of a region now lost to time and conflict. 
 
‘Funny, didactic and biting, Byron's masterpiece transports us across the world and, better still, across the decades’ Independent

A real-life adventure that inspired countless travellers in fact and fiction, the Penguin Classics edition of Robert Byron's The Road to Oxiana includes an introduction by Colin Thubron. 
 
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. The Road to Oxiana 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. 
 
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 The Road to Oxiana is considered by many modern travel writers to be the first example of great travel writing. 
 
If you enjoyed The Road to Oxiana you might like Charles Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle, also available in Penguin Classics. 
 
'The greatest of all pre-war travel books' 
William Dalrymple 
 
'What Ulysses is to the novel between the wars, and what 'The Waste Land' is to poetry, The Road to Oxiana is to the travel book' 
Paul Fussell 
 
'In any list of the great travel books of the 20th century, Robert Byron's account of his travels in Persia and Afghanistan, The Road to Oxiana, must be put somewhere near the very top' 
Telegraph

Robert Byron was born in 1905, and educated at Eton and Merton College, Oxford. He died in 1941, during the Second World War, when the ship he was serving on was torpedoed by a U-Boat off Cape Wrath. Byron's The Road to Oxiana is considered by many modern travel writers to be the first example of great travel writing. 
 
 
Award-winning travel writer and novelist Colin Thubron was born in London on 14 June 1939. Among his books are Mirror to Damascus (1967), The Hills of Adonis: A Quest in Lebanon (1968), Jerusalem (1969), The Lost Heart of Asia (1994) and In Siberia (1999). Colin Thubron is a regular contributor and reviewer for magazines and newspapers including The Times, The Times Literary Supplement and the Spectator. He lives in London.

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. The Road to Oxiana 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.

Apsley Cherry-Garrard

Robert Byron

THE WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD - Probably the best adventure yarn ever published

THE ROAD TO OXIANA - A writer of breathtaking prose - prose whose sensuous, chiselled beauty has cast its spell on English travel writing ever since

To mark the publication of Stop What You're Doing and Read This!, a collection of essays celebrating reading, Vintage Classics are releasing 12 limited edition themed ebook 'bundles', to tempt readers to discover and rediscover great books. 
 
THE WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 
INTRODUCED BY SARA WHEELER 
A gripping account of an expedition gone disastrously wrong. One of the youngest members of Captain Scott's team, Apsley Cherry-Garrard was later part of the rescue party that found the frozen bodies of Scott and the three men who had accompanied him on the final push to the Pole. A masterpiece of travel writing, this is the most celebrated and compelling of all the books on Antarctic exploration. 
 
THE ROAD TO OXIANA 
In 1933, the delightfully eccentric Robert Byron set out on a journey through the Middle East via Beirut, Jerusalem, Baghdad and Teheran to Oxiana - part of the border between what is now Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. This is the captivating, quirky record of his adventures and a rare account of the architectural treasures of a region now inaccessible to most Western travellers.

Robert Byron

Praise for Stop What You’re Doing and Read…On a Journey: The Worst Journey in the World & The Road to Oxiana

THE WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD - Probably the best adventure yarn ever published

THE ROAD TO OXIANA - A writer of breathtaking prose - prose whose sensuous, chiselled beauty has cast its spell on English travel writing ever since

Books by Robert Byron

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