European travel writing in the Middle Ages

Book synopsis: The Routledge Companion to Travel Writing is both the ideal springboard for beginners new to the genre and an important resource for established researchers. Covering a broad range of historical, theoretical and cultural contexts for the study of travel writing, and combining critical surveys with close readings of individual travelogues, the volume provides a prospectus to the genre that reflects the very latest thinking in the field. Covering all the relevant topics and debates, from postcolonial studies and issues of gender and sexuality to visual culture, the travelling body and questions of reception and readership, this is an essential overview of the current state of travel writing studies, which will encourage the field to move in new and exciting directions