The book arises from a series of informal winter afternoon gatherings where a group of young people, affectionately known as the Alpine Club, meet at the home of Colonel Ingham near Boston. Surrounded by an eccentric and vast library, these youths engage the colonel and their friends in lively discussions about geography, history, and historic sea and land voyages. The resulting volume serves as an instructional guide designed to teach boys and girls how to independently navigate public library treasures by reading genuine accounts rather than watered-down retellings.
Opening with the thirteenth-century Venetian traveller Marco Polo, the text recounts his astonishing journey to the court of Cublai Khan, the Great Khan of the Tartars. Through extracts from Irving and Col. Yule, readers follow the elder Polos and young Marco across Asia, their twenty-four-year absence, and their dramatic return to Venice where they revealed hidden jewels sewn into coarse Tartar garments. The narrative highlights Marco Polo's subsequent capture by the Genoese navy, his imprisonment, and the composition of his famous book at the urging of a curious cellmate.
The volume then spans centuries of exploration, featuring Sir John Mandeville’s adventurous travels through Western Asia and Egypt, blended with medieval lore and wondrous descriptions. Readers encounter tales of the Crusades through the precise chronicle of Geoffrey of Vinsauf, detailing the fierce siege of Acre, the arrival of Richard the Lion-hearted, and the tragic death of the Roman Emperor Frederick. These historical sources bring alive the human passions, hardships, and military strategies of medieval warfare in the Holy Land.
Shifting continents and eras, the collection presents the dramatic firsthand letters of Hernando Cortes regarding his conquest of Mexico. Cortes details the violent insurrections within Tenochtitlan, the death of Montezuma, the desperate night retreat known as the sad night, and his relentless resourcefulness in constructing rafts and securing provisions to survive. These primary accounts offer an unvarnished look at the clash of civilizations and the harsh realities of sixteenth-century Spanish exploration in the New World.
Further explorations examine the early Spanish searches for the mythical seven cities through the letters of Father Marco and Coronado, contrasting the friar's exaggerated reports with Coronado's sobering discoveries among the pueblo settlements of the Southwest. The narrative moves north through Father Isaac Jogues's harrowing account of captivity among the Iroquois, illustrating the extreme dangers faced by early missionaries in New France. Finally, the volume reaches the harsh northern wilderness with Hearne's overland journey to the Arctic Ocean and Alexander von Humboldt's scientific expeditions into the equatorial regions of South America.
Throughout these diverse narratives, the underlying pedagogical mission remains constant: to spark an insatiable curiosity in young minds. By presenting unembellished primary sources and classic travel literature, the author ensures that readers are never fully satisfied, but are instead compelled to seek out the original works themselves and explore further into the vast resources of public libraries.
