The Faber Book of Exploration: An Anthology of Worlds Revealed by Explorers Through the Ages

Published by Faber and Faber, 2002, hardcover, index, 800 pages, 16 cms x 24.2 cms x 6.2 cms, condition: new.

Benedict Allen's anthology of human exploration presents the words of those who have set off into 'the unknown' and returned to tell the tale. This volume is the first full-ranging anthology of the subject, bringing together Vikings and cosmonauts, conquistadors and botanists. There is no doubting Benedict Allen's voracious appetite for exploration, and as such he is our ideal guide across these extraordinary pages.

The author, Benedict Allen is one of the UK's most prominent explorers. Wherever possible, he prefers to travel alone, immersing himself in alien environments having first learnt survival skills from indigenous peoples.He read Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, and in his graduation year joined expeditions to Costa Rica, Brunei and Iceland. In 1983, aged 23, he crossed the remote rainforest between the Orinoco and Amazon, on foot and by dugout canoe: a journey that became the subject of his first book Mad White Giant: A Journey to the Heart of the Amazon Jungle.Following this, he underwent a gruelling 6-week initiation ceremony in Papua New Guinea, chronicled in his second book Into the Crocodile Nest. Subsequent expeditions have included a search for ape-men in Sumatra (Hunting the Gugu), a trek through New Guinea and to Australia's Gibson Desert (The Proving Grounds) and a 3600-mile journey across the Amazon Basin.