"Who discovered Britain? We are familiar with the image of adventurers setting out to discover distant lands, but who explored our own islands? In Great British Journeys, Nicholas Crane follows in the footsteps of eight early travellers as they cross the length and breadth of Britain, revealing the country as it has never been seen before." "From Gerald of Wales' twelfth-century recruitment drive for the Crusades, to H.V. Morton's adventures of 1927 in his bull-nosed Morris, each of the eight had their own mission and faced their own challenges, John Leland, Henry VIII's famous chronicler, was sent mad by his attempt to record the landscape in writing; Celia Fiennes rode out in 1698 aiming to be the first person to visit all the countries of England, when Britain was in the grips of a 'Little Ice Age'. Pennant explored the wilds of Scotland on foot and by boat, caught in a vicious storm in Loch Maree, while Gilpin viewed England from the relative safety of the River Wye." "All left narratives behind for others - Daniel Defoe's A Tour Thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724-1726) provides a detailed account of trade on the eve of the Industrial Revolution, while Cobbett's Rural Rides gives first-hand evidence on the plights of the poor of the countryside."--BOOK JACKET.