Sir Thomas Herbert. Travels in Africa Persia, and Asia the Great

Sir Thomas Herbert. Travels in Africa Persia, and Asia the Great. Ed. and Intro. John Anthony Butler. Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2012. xcvii + 904 pp. + 18 illus. $120.00. Sir Thomas Herbert (1606-1682) is best known as a companion to Charles I in the last years of the monarch's life. Herbert was also one of a group of English and Scotsmen who emerged in the seventeenth century, journeying great distances and returning to write lengthy travel narratives about their experiences. Thomas Coryate (1579-1618), William Lithgow (1582-1645), and Henry Blount (1602-1682) among others, traveled east, alone or in small groups and returned to write accounts of their adventures with themselves at the center of their narratives. Their books were typically encyclopedic, indebted to humanist conventions of the previous century. Herbert's Travels was among the most popular, appearing in five printings between 1634 and 1677. A distant relative of the earls of Pembroke, Herbert aspired to the bar attending Cambridge and Oxford. His family connections placed him in Sir Robert Sherley and Sir Dodmore Cotton's diplomatic mission to Persia in 1627. Upon his return three years later, Herbert was appointed esquire of the body to Charles I and supported the king during the English Civil War. One of the few men who served the king and then Parliament, Herbert spent the interregnum in Ireland as a commissioner. At the Restoration, Charles II made him a baronet. He spent the rest of his years writing about his experiences during and after the war. The mission to Persia was ultimately a failure--both Cotton and Sherley died early in the journey. Little was left for Herbert and the other members of the embassy to do. Before returning to England, however, they made an extensive tour of Persia and the surrounding regions. Herbert made the best of the experience by composing a narrative of the journey there and back with digressions on the various places and peoples he encountered. The voyage out began in Dover, sailed via the Canary Islands, Robben Island, around the Cape of Good Hope, stopped at Madagascar, Ethiopia, Goa, and Surat seeing Coryate's grave, eventually arriving at Gambrun [Bandar Abbas]. The delegation traveled throughout Persia before arriving at the Shah's court in Qazvin, where Sherley and Cotton died. Herbert and the remaining English returned through India and again around the Cape. After his return, while waiting to assume his position at court Herbert wrote the first version of his travel narrative, A Description of the Persian Monarchy now beinge: the Orientall Indyes, lies and other parts of the greater Asia and Africk (1634). The book was an impressive folio with an engraved title page and thirty-five copperplate engravings and maps. Herbert continued to work on the book, producing an enlarged edition entitled Some Yeares Travels into Divers Parts of Asia andAfrique in 1638. A third revision that included still more, largely historical material, had three printings in 1664, 1665, and 1677. The 1665 edition is noteworthy for the inclusion of an engraving of Persepolis by Wenceslas Hollar, commissioned by Herbert. Modern editions include an abridged 1677 version (1928) and a facsimile reprint of the 1634 (1971). Following the conventions of early modern travel writing, Herbert interspersed historical, cultural, geographical, and theological digressions throughout his itinerary. He included an account of Prester John, Noah's Ark and an early description of Persepolis. Word lists from Persian, Malay and other languages were also included. Of particular interest were the illustrations of people, animals, and places along with several maps, mostly based on Herbert's own sketches. John Anthony Butler, associate professor of the Humanities at the University College of the North in The Pas, Manitoba has undertaken the editing of an annotated edition of Herbert's last version. …

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