Elusive Traveller

This is the first-ever biography of the Victorian journalist, newspaper editor and travel writer Andrew Wilson (1830–1881). Born in Bombay, he was educated in the universities of Edinburgh and Tübingen, subsequently editing various newspapers in Bombay, Karachi and Hongkong. A prolific contributor to Blackwood’s Magazine, he became widely known for his book The Abode of Snow, the graphic description of a journey in the Himalaya. Based mainly on Wilson’s unpublished letters to John and William Blackwood, the biography reveals a striking personality whose life and career afford fascinating glimpses of the cultural, political and religious history of 19th-century Scotland in the context of the British Empire.