In 1821, Maria Dundas Graham sailed for South America. After her husband, the ship's captain, died en route, the newly widowed Maria Graham resisted all efforts to hustle her back to England. She rented a cottage in Valparaiso and spent nine months travelling in Chile. This is her journal.

Containing more than 600 entries, this valuable resource presents all aspects of travel writing. There are entries on places and routes (Afghanistan, Black Sea, Egypt, Gobi Desert, Hawaii, Himalayas, Italy, Northwest Passage, Samarkand, Silk Route, Timbuktu), writers (Isabella Bird, Ibn Battuta, Bruce Chatwin, Gustave Flaubert, Mary Kingsley, Walter Ralegh, Wilfrid Thesiger), methods of transport and types of journey (balloon, camel, grand tour, hunting and big game expeditions, pilgrimage, space travel and exploration), genres (buccaneer narratives, guidebooks, New World chronicles, postcards), companies and societies (East India Company, Royal Geographical Society, Society of Dilettanti), and issues and themes (censorship, exile, orientalism, and tourism). For a full list of entries and contributors, a generous selection of sample entries, and more, visit the Literature of Travel and Exploration: An Encyclopedia website.

Surveys the radical changes that have occurred in recent years in every aspect of Chilean life. Features more than 3,000 dictionary entries covering history, politics, geography, economics, the environment, culture, and a myriad other topics that include writers, artists, playwrights, and important figures, many of which were not included in the previous edition. Also included are 24 photographs of the paintings of famous Latin American artists, and an exhaustive bibliography of more than 1,200 resources subdivided by topic and fully annotated.