So begins Sabine Baring-Gould's account of his journey on horseback around Iceland in 1862. Aged twenty-eight, the young writer and teacher was fascinated by the tradition of the Icelandic sagas, and this was the catalyst for his adventure and the book that emerged from it. His voyage took him from the then tiny settlement of Reykjavik through remote and hostile terrain, passing through the empty expanse of Iceland's countryside. He observed mountains and glaciers, volcanoes and geysers, wondering at the wild beauty of the landscape. He also recorded the rich flora and fauna that he saw-and, to his chagrin, that his companions shot.

Originally part of the Woolfs' personal library, the Leonard and Virginia Woolf Collection at Washington State University reveals valuable biographical information about the Woolfs themselves, as well as writers and artists associated with the Bloomsbury Group. The catalog consists of brief citations that describe all of the circa 6,000 volumes in the repository.