Born in London in 1919, Eric Newby was educated at St Paul's School. He began his travelling career in a pram commuting between Hammersmith Bridge and such seaside resorts as Frinton. In 1938 he persuaded his father to have him apprenticed to the four-masted Finnish barque "Moshulu" and, with camera in tow, sailed in the last Grain Race from Australia to Europe by way of Cape Horn - the beginning of a lifelong passion for both travel and photography.
Whatever else he was doing, Eric Newby has always travelled on a grand scale, whether under his own steam or as travel editor of 'The Observer'. In all his adventures his camera has never been far from his side, and the 250 photographs reproduced in this volume represent some of Newby's finest work. The accompanying recollections are full of his trademark self-deprecating humour and highly observant sense of the incongruous.
