What did nineteenth-century travellers actually see when they journeyed through the Malay Archipelago-and what did they miss? The travelogues penned by British and Dutch explorers reached a wide readership; they have shaped how we imagine this region with their accounts of island kingdoms, volcanic landscapes, and maritime crossroads. Other voices-Javanese nobles venturing beyond their courts, Eurasian tourists navigating between worlds, French administrators, Scandinavian adventurers, Italian naturalists-remained in the shadows. The Malay Archipelago through Travellers' Eyes recovers these overlooked perspectives alongside fresh readings of celebrated figures like James Brooke, the "White Rajah" of Sarawak, and the intrepid Isabella Bird. Here we encounter Purwalelana, whose groundbreaking Javanese travelogue in modern prose abandoned centuries of poetic tradition; Kartini, whose letters became a means of traversing boundaries she could not physically cross; and De-Lilah, whose Eurasian heritage gave her writing an unsettling double vision. The naturalist Junghuhn scaling Java's volcanoes, Raffles burnishing British reputation against Dutch rivals, Italian explorers charting New Guinea's coasts-each constructed not only the lands they described but also themselves. Travel writing has often claimed to offer transparent windows onto foreign worlds. This collection reveals it as something far more interesting: a literature of encounter where imperial ambition, personal identity, and genuine curiosity intertwine. For anyone captivated by the arts of travel and observation, these essays open new ways of reading a genre we thought we knew.
Dr Bosnak has lectured and carried out research in the field of Southeast Asian Studies for over fifteen years and is currently the Director of the SAKA Museum dedicated to the living culture of the island of Bali. Rick Honings is a Dutch literature scholar and professor at Leiden University.
Acknowledgements Introduction Judith E. Bosnak and Rick Honings Part I Storytelling in a Hybrid World 1. When Regent Candranegara Met Professor Veth: Intellectual Journeys Across the Island of Java (circa 1865-85) Judith E. Bosnak 2. A Javanese Visitor to Batavia: Sastradarma's Cariyosipun Betawi (1867-69) Willem van der Molen 3. A Land Like a Paradise: A Travelogue about Java by Eurasian Writer De-Lilah (1896) Olf Praamstra 4. The Well-Travelled Mind: Mobility and Gender in Travel Writing by R.A. Kartini (1898-1904) Sylvia Tiwon Part II Letters from the 'Contact Zone' 5. Britishness and Empire in the Malay Archipelago: The Travels of Stamford Raffles (1817) and Isabella Bird (1883) Marijke Denger 6. Behind the Palace Walls: Ethnographic Insights on Gender in Pierre Dubois's Sketch of Bali in 1830 Helen Creese 7. A Long Journey in Borneo: James Brooke's Journals and Letters from Sarawak (1838-46) Elsa Clave Part III Sounds of Science and Empire 8. Images of Light and Shadow: Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn in Java (1835-64) Rick Honings 9. Tropical Tours, Northern Narratives: Late 19th-Century Scandinavian Travellers in the Dutch East Indies Mikko Toivanen 10. Naturalists, Scholars and Ethnographers in the 'Unknown Lands'. The Malay Archipelago in the Writings of Italian Explorers (circa 1865-90) Alessandro Di Meo Notes on the Contributors Index
