Largely ignored hitherto by Western scholars, Plutschow's Edo Period Travel provides the first in-depth study of the subject which is centred on fifteen of the period's most notable travellers, some of whom are well known in other fields - as intellectuals, artists, poets, folklorists and natural scientists, for example - but rarely, if at all, as travellers. The first traveller put in the spotlight is the celebrated intellectual and botanist...