Ninety-Two Days (7)

Ninety-Two Days (7)

Summary

'Who in his sense will read, still less buy, a travel book of no scientific value about a place he has no intention of visiting?'. Waugh provides the answer to his own question in this entertaining chronicle of a South American journey. In it, he describes the isolated cattle country of Guiana, sparsely populated by a bizarre collection of visionaries, rogues and ranchers, and records his nightmarish experiences traveling on foot, by horse and by boat through the jungle into Brazil. He debunks the romantic notions attached to rough traveling - his trip is difficult, dangerous and extremely uncomfortable - and his acute and witty observations in this marvelous travelogue give his reader 'a share in the experience of travel'.

Reviews

  • He wrote like an angel - a fallen angel...a marvelous prose stylist
    Irish Times

About the author

Evelyn Waugh

Evelyn Waugh was born in Hampstead in 1903 and educated at Hertford College, Oxford. In 1928 he published his first novel, Decline and Fall, which was soon followed by Vile Bodies (1930), Black Mischief (1932), A Handful of Dust (1934) and Scoop (1938). During these years he also travelled extensively and converted to Catholicism. In 1939 Waugh was commissioned in the Royal Marines and later transferred to the Royal Horse Guards, experiences which informed his Sword of Honour trilogy (1952-61). His most famous novel, Brideshead Revisited (1945), was written while on leave from the army. Waugh died in 1966.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more