Book dossier

Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan

by John Lloyd Stephens

An instant best-seller when first published in 1841, Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan by John Lloyd Stephens, with illustrations by Frederick Catherwood, continues to draw readers who want to see the ruins of Copan, Quirigua, Palenque, and Uxmal as this American lawyer and British artist first saw them on muleback more than 150 years ago. Although Stephens and Catherwood traveled without maps into the wilds of a region gripped by civil war, their detailed descriptions and drawings of the great "lost" civilization gave birth to Maya archaeology and led many others to follow in their footsteps. This new edition brings the best of both Stephens's narrative and Catherwood's drawings into a single volume with an added selection of photographs - many never before published - that expand a reader's view of the Maya ruins, the cities and scenes along the journey, and the native peoples whose cultures endure today. The illustrations include nineteenth-century scenes by the renowned photographer Eadweard Muybridge, portraits of Guatemalan Indians from the Smithsonian's Emilio Herbruger collection, and Osbert Salvin's early photos of Copan. More recent photographs of Guatemala by Jacques and Parney VanKirk and of the Lacandon in Mexico by Gertrude Duby Blom capture the timeless nature of the lands of the Maya that persists into the twentieth century. Now enhanced with historical and modern photographs, this new, one-volume edition of Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan is organized for the traveler by place and omits descriptions of Stephens's voyages to and from the region and his short trips to Costa Rica and Nicaragua, as well as some long historical digressions and anecdotes. It will remain a classic of travel literature and Maya archaeology.