My interest in William Macintosh began in 2008 as part of an AHRC-funded research project investigating the publication of travel texts by the London firm John Murray (from the late-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century). Macintosh’s book was, in the context of that project, but one of approximately 240 texts of extra-European travel which fell under our consideration. The findings of that research project were published today by the University of Chicago Press under the title Travels into print: exploration, writing, and publishing with John Murray, 1773–1859.
My co-authors—Charles W. J. Withers and Bill Bell—and I submitted the proposal for Travels on 22 January 2010 (exactly 5 years and 3 months ago). Having lived with the book’s writing, editing, and publication for more than half a decade, it was a real thrill to see the printed artefact today in the exhibition hall at the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers in Chicago. Conference delegates are able to pick up a copy of the book at a specially discounted rate of $36.