Voyages and Travels – collection highlights
The Voyages and Travels collection contains stories of courage, determination, curiosity, and desire for fame and fortune. It tells of brave endeavours to extend knowledge of art, geography, history and science, and to understand the manners and customs of the people encountered. The collection mirrors the values and interests, both positive and negative, of the early members of the Devon and Exeter Institution, and the virtues and vices of travel and travel literature.

Please be aware that, while these materials may not have been considered harmful at the time of publication, we recognise that they contain harmful, offensive and discriminatory language and ideas, both within the text and images and also within the historic titles. The Devon and Exeter Institution seeks to balance the preservation of historic materials with careful consideration as to how these materials can be presented, reinterpreted and co-curated by its users.

Thomas Witlam Atkinson (1799-1861)
Oriental and Western Siberia : a narrative of seven years’ explorations and adventures (London, 1858)

Giovanni Battista Belzoni (1778-1823)
Narrative of the operations and recent discoveries within the pyramids, temples, tombs, and excavations in Egypt and Nubia (London, 1820)

James Bruce of Kinnaird (1730-1794)
Travels to discover the source of the Nile (Edinburgh, 1804)

Vivant Denon (1747-1825)
Voyage dans la Basse et la Haute Egypte, pendant les campagnes du general Bonaparte (Paris, 1802)

Robert Fortune (1813-1880)
Three years’ wanderings in the northern provinces of China : including a visit to the tea, silk, and cotton countries (London, 1847)

Sir George Staunton (1737-1801)
An authentic account of an embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China (London, 1798)

John Gabriel Stedman (1744-1797)
Narrative, of a five years’ expedition … of Surinam in Guiana (London, 1806)