Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes
1879
One of the first great travel books in English, this is Robert Louis Stevenson at his most personal and surprising. Before he wrote Treasure Island or Jekyll and Hyde, the young writer set out on foot across the wild Cevennes mountains with nothing but a borrowed tent and a stubborn donkey named Modestine, who would consistently refuse to move at the most inconvenient moments. What follows is a luminous account of a twelve-day, 120-mile journey through rural France, where the greatest adventure turns out to be learning to travel slowly. Stevenson records his frustrations with Modestine, his encounters with hospitable strangers, and his own thoughts on solitude, companionship, and the strange pleasure of putting one foot in front of the other. The writing fizzes with humor and self-deprecation, revealing a different kind of hero than his famous fiction: a man learning patience, paying close attention to the world, and discovering that the journey matters more than the destination. It remains a foundational text of outdoor literature and a proof that you don't need danger to have adventure.
