This book examines travel writing between the Six Dynasties period (220–589) and the late Ming dynasty (1368–1644). This study is particularly noteworthy because, despite the depth of research in the field of travel writing, it is the first book-length history of its kind in English. It introduces the beginnings of the traditional form and structure of the genre in the third and fourth centuries and then traces how it was modified and developed by authors throughout the imperial period into the seventeenth century. James M. Hargett considers prose texts written in essay format that contain narratives of the “physical experience of a journey through space toward an identifiable place” (p. 13) to be travel literature (youji). He incorporates discussions of the most celebrated authors associated with this genre. Yet he takes particular care to integrate lesser-known and previously untranslated authors in light of his goal to “identify exemplar...
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