Author Description

This issue of Austrian Studies assembles articles that represent the great variety of travel writing by authors from Austria and the Habsburg lands. Contributions investigate examples of 'heroic' exploratory travel of the 19th century and its colonialist implications, journalistic and impressionistic narratives from the fin-de-siècle to the 1940s, and private and 'official' notation by prominent and lesser known authors. Writings of classical modernism demonstrate how optimistic, horizon-expanding travel endured, but also how changing political circumstances and cultural norms undermined the confident optimism of traditional travel narratives. Diversifying perspectives, including those of female travellers, as well as new means of expression and aesthetic innovation progressively challenged old certainties. The range of the genre of travel writing is illustrated by contributions on Bohemian spas, the medium of the Lied cycle and notations by emigrants in transit, while the legacy of the COVID-19 pandemic and the future of travel in a climate-changed world are to the fore in analyses of travel writing today. Volume 31 of Austrian Studies is edited by Florian Krobb and Caitríona Leahy.