The Great Railway Bazaar

First published in 1975, this travel narrative follows the author on a long rail journey from London through Europe and the Middle East to India, Southeast Asia, and Japan, then home on the Trans-Siberian. He records compartments, station food, fellow passengers, and the changing quality of trains as gauges and regimes change. Cities appear as stopovers rather than as subjects of civic history. The voice is that of a traveling observer who talks with strangers and notes discomfort. The book is a railway travel account, not a novel and not a timetable history of any one line.

Quarter-bound in black cloth with Modigliani paper sides printed with a colour picture. Frontispiece and 24 pages of colour plates. Map endpapers printed black on yellow-brown. Red slipcase.