The Cevennes Journal

Book excerpt: 'For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.' - RLS In September 1878, Robert Louis Stevenson travelled by donkey through the Cevennes region of France. For personal memory - and, as it happens, for literary posterity - the young Stevenson recorded copious notes on his journey as he travelled. Some of these witty and incisive impressions were subsequently published in Travels With A Donkey. The remainder, however, didn't find its way into print until the first publication of The Cevennes Journal in 1978, one hundred years later. This travelogue, which also includes several of Stevenson's previously unpublished sketches of the region, provides both a unique socio-historical document and an important piece of literature.