If you think you would like to be a writer, you need to take a look at this book. Two past masters of the English language (Kipling and Churchill) apparently sang its praises. You can't finish the first page without nodding your head in agreement.

You will learn many things in this book which are new, and many things which are true. As an example, I will give "the Usage," a new concept for me, but one which embodied the unwritten law or constitution which supported peace in Europe. It basically says that peace will be upheld by the five Great Powers. They are not obliged to right the wrongs of another State. They are not obliged to fight a war where there is no hope of victory. But if a smaller state is being wronged, and that wrong presently or in the future imperils the interests of a great power, and if there is hope of victory, that power MUST intervene and restore the European peace.

Kinglake cites Prussia's failure to help Austria combat Napoleon as a negative example, where Prussia failed to follow "the Usage." The result: Prussia lost stature, lost moral suasion, lost its own war with Napoleon, and then vanished from the roster of European states.

One wonders if "the Usage" has expanded to the world sphere by now.

Excellent reading, and highest recommendation!

If you've ever had a dream to travel outside of your own backyard, this book will give you the push you need to make that decision. Alexander Kinglake takes you through the exotic east by the most interesting modes of transportation. Horseback, Camels, Dromedaries, and fantastic sea vessels. You'll travel through places such as Stanboul, Constantinople, Cyprus, Galilee, Cairo, the Pyramids, and Jerusalem just to name a few.

A brilliant descriptive writer, Kinglake tells you every detail about what he's viewing along the way, along with the emotional side of traveling through history. Standing on a hilltop, possibly the precise spot where Homer did, that inspired his works, Kinglake takes you there with him, describing unchanged landscape and the flood of emotions that will definately touch you. When he arrived at the Holy lands, it left me in tears, and a great yearning to plan my own pilgrimage there.

It amazed me that this man made it through his travels safe and sound. He survived the plague which was rampant at that time. It was frightening to read about, let alone live through it! Which he tells about in depth. The extreme fear everyone lived in. Yet despite all the precautions taken, it still managed to seek you out and take you into it's unimaginable numbers. Day after day, he watched cavalcades of funeral processions pass through the streets, from sunrise to well beyond sunset. How he fooled it, I'll never know. He always seemed to be in contact with plague stricken people, and even thought for a time that he too had fallen victim when symptoms began to appear.

Through this journal you'll learn about the people of this era and before. The Ottomans, Bedouins, Monks, Jews, Catholics, and Christians. Aristocrats, such as Lady Hester, Sheiks, and Pasha's. Most interesting was Kinglake himself. Just who was this man? He tells little about his own background. But as you read, this intelligent, confident, diplomatic Englishman unfolds before you. With a sense of humor few can match!

This book was gifted to me, and sparked the desire to be a part of what Kinglake and others knew about life. Not to let each day pass by caught up in mundane routines, but live each one to the fullest.

This is a book to be treasured and I read it several times. It is hard to imagine the world Kinglake describes which is virtually extinct now at a time when lions abounded in Eastern Europe, Caliphs and Pashas smoked their pipes through long tubing and Lady Hester Stanhope gets esoteric.

Full of humour, the book is as British as they come with such sensitive nuances about the subject matter including disease, women, customs and issues of religion in the holy land.

I'm still looking for this brand of hero inside and out but don't think he's that common except as a carricature. Did Kinglake's world and attitude really exist?

This is a very good, and very funny book. I also came to it through Churchill's recommendation. As I read about it, the man who overheard Churchill growl "Kinglake" went off and read Eothen, loved it, and then asked Churchill, "What now?"

The gruff reply was "More Kinglake." This rather puzzled our aspiring author -- Kinglake's only other book was his two-volume "Invasion of the Crimea."

After a casual search of more than twenty years, I finally located this two-volume set through Amazon, and -- guess what -- it's terrific. It's even better than Eothen, because it has a serious purpose. It is marvellously written, and numinously intelligent. It needs to be brought back into print.