In the early seventeenth century, Thomas Coryate, an eccentric Englishman, a writer and a wanderer, decided to walk from his village of Odcombe in Somerset of the Indies—to the court of the Great Mogul, Jehangir, and onwards to Chin, the land from where the silks came. His search was for fame, not fortune: he wanted to be the first man to write about those distant lands. Above all, he wanted to prove himself—to his many sceptics in Prince Henry’s court, whom he amused for a living, and the lovely Lady Anne Harcourt, whom he loved deeply, only to be hurt. The Long Strider tells the extraordinary story of Coryate’s 5000-mile journey on foot to India, across the forbidding Arabian Desert and the treacherous Hindukush mountains. To reach the court of Jehangir, Coryate survived penury, loneliness, ridicule and extreme hostility; but disillusionment awaited him at the end of this journey: despite her many wonders and charms, he was also shocked and repelled by India, and the emperor, possessor of fabulous wealth, made a mockery of his dream. Coryate died in the port city of Surat, and was buried there in an obscure grave. Interwoven with the narrative about Coryate’s quest is an account of the authors’ own travels through the cities the Englishman visited nearly four hundred years ago. In Coryate’s footsteps, they go to Delhi, Ajmer, Agra, Aligarh and Surat, and discover that while much has changed, in some respects the India Coryate encountered is not very different from the India that exists today. Part biography, part travelogue, The Long Strider, written with elegance, wit and insight, is a compelling read.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dom Moraes
Dom Moraes was born in Bombay in 1938. In 1954, he met Stephen Spender and Karl Shapiro, both famous poets who edited literary magazines. Spender published his poems in Encounter and Shapiro in Poetry Chicago. At Oxford University he received criticism and praise from W.H. Auden and Allen Tate. Still an undergraduate, he published his first book of poetry, A Beginning, which was awarded the Hawthornden Prize for Literature. Reviewing the book, Edwin Muir said that it ‘had remarkable maturity and the promise of greatness’. After leaving Oxford, Dom became a well-known journalist and foreign correspondent. He covered the Eichmann trial, as well as wars in Algeria, Israel, and Vietnam. He traveled to some of the more remote and dangerous parts of the world. In later life he was employed as a literary consultant by the United Nations agency UNFPA. His early poetry showed a natural lyrical talent allied to precocious technical skill. As his perceptions deepened and his subject matter acquired more range, he developed a remarkable mastery over his art. He has published ten volumes of verse, two books of translation from Hebrew poetry, and over twenty works of prose. Dom Moraes lives in Mumbai.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Sarayu Srivatsa
Sarayu Srivatsa trained as an architect and town planner at the Madras and Tokyo Universities. She was the editor of Indian Architect and Builder , and has written extensively on the evolution and growth of cities. Her book Where the Streets Lead was published in 1997 and won the JIIA award. In 1996 she collaborated with Dom Moraes on a series of scripts on India for Channel 4 television. Recently she won the Picador- Outlook Non-Fiction Writing award.
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