PERCEPTIVE READERS WILL no doubt observe that I am, of course, unashamedly borrowing this volume's title from J. R. R.Tolkien's novel The Hobbit, or There and Back Again (1937). Bilbo Baggins's quest, as described in Tolkien's book and, within the metafictive diegesis, in the character's own memoirs of that same title, exhibit all the paradigmatic ingredients found in travellers’ temperaments: an inquiring and curious mind, a love for adventure, courage and resourcefulness as well as distrust and fear of the unknown. Thus, Bilbo Baggins will endure, in equal measure, all the delights and discomforts that have besought fictional as well as historical travellers through the ages. At the onset of our own exploration into the mysteries of travel narratives it is fitting that we whimsically evoke Bilbo and the emphasis that his title (There and Back Again) places not only on the effects of travel itself but on the transformative impressions of the act of travelling on someone's life after his or her return to their point of origin as well as the importance of recording these worthy experiences. The hobbit-turned-writer expressive title equally underscores, as will become palpable in the ensuing studies, not only the reciprocal nature of any contact between the traveller and the peoples he/ she encounters but also the inescapable acquisition of knowledge which follows any such interaction.

Scholars of medieval and early modern culture and history are keenly aware of the fact that travel narratives, travelogues and maps provide us with a privileged locus of investigation of issues of multiculturalism, nationalism and geopolitics. In spite of the fact that these travel narratives enact intriguing cultural exchanges and transfers of knowledge among disparate ethnic, political and religious groups, they have often been excluded from the historical or literary canon for their purported lack of objectivity and verisimilitude and the simplicity of their discourse. Meanwhile, the emergence of a new field of Travel Writing studies in the last decades has not only begun to transform our estimation of such narratives and artifacts but has also revealed that travelling and the development of scientific advances aimed at enhancing such travel had a crucial impact on the onset of early modernity.