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Eric Newby was born in London in 1919. In 1938, he joined the four-masted Finnish barque Moshulu as an apprentice and sailed in the last Grain Race from Australia to Europe, by way of Cape Horn. During World War II, he served in the Black Watch and the Special Boat Section. In 1942, he was captured and remained a prisoner-of-war until 1945. He subsequently married the girl who helped him to escape, and for the next fifty years, his wife Wanda was at his side on many adventures. After the war, he worked in the fashion business and book publishing but always travelled on a grand scale, sometimes as the Travel Editor for the Observer. He was made CBE in 1994 and was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award of the British Guild of Travel Writers in 2001. Eric Newby died in 2006.
‘One of the most stimulating and rewarding travel books to be seen for a long time' Spectator 'A splendid book . . . With its generosity, quirkiness, encyclopaedic love of facts, wisdom, humour, sense of history and change, this is a lot more than even the very best of travel books. Its author is a Ulysses, the book an Odyssey' Guardian 'Newby, the most companionable of literary vagabonds . . . Surely his best work since “A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush”' Scotsman 'Whatever Newby writes, I read with uncritical pleasure. The Newby travels are classics of their kind' Financial Times 'A new book by Eric Newby is something of an event…It is a feast that combines and juxtaposes many different textures and flavours . . . A superb reporter, Mr Newby paints marvelously detailed portraits. . . An unrivalled eye for the ridiculous and, although this is essentially a serious book, it is frequently very, very funny. . . He is an extremely elegant writer, beautifully paced and rhythmic . . . For Newby admirers, this particular event is a memorable one, and it should also recruit a lot of new admirers to his ranks' Daily Telegraph 'Any book by Eric Newby is a must for me. But “On the Shores of the Mediterranean” is a particular favourite…The man's books are a marvelous tonic on dark and dismal British days' Barbara Dickson, Mail on Sunday
