Travels with a Donkey / An Inland Voyage / The Silverado Squatters

– The adventures of a Scottish vagabond in Europe and California –

“In a sail-powered canoe, on foot with a pack-donkey, playing house in a derelict silver mine, Stevenson celebrates the romance of life as a voluntary inland castaway. From canalside Belgium and darkest rural France to the wild west, he gazeteers history, landscape and inhabitants with equal enthusiasm, despite being taken for a madman.

Throwing himself into each encounter with youthful relish and a supreme disregard for discomfort, this precursor of Kerouac and Chatwin rates life in the open as better by far than regular employment or even a dose of laudanum.”

Contents:
A Note on the Author and Editor
A Chronology of Stevenson’s Life and Times
Introduction
Note on the Text
An Inland Voyage
Travels with a Donkey
The Silverado Squatters
Stevenson and His Critics
Suggestion for Further Reading
Acknowledgements