The years 1800-1940 were the heyday of the independent explorer—free-spirited, mostly European adventurers who took incredible risks in pursuit of discovery and fame.

Some lit out for the mysterious city of Timbuktu, others the source of the Nile River, or the elusive Northwest Passage over Canada, or the fabled lost cities of Latin America, or the North or South Poles—quests that obsessed nineteenth-century explorers and hardly matter today. They were a special breed of traveller: courageous and determined, gluttons for punishment, frequently self-financed, and often horrendously misinformed and ill-prepared. While a lucky few returned home in glory, far more starved or froze or succumbed to cannibalism or died of malaria or dysentery or at the hands of angry locals or wild beasts or were simply never heard from again.

In equal parts eye-opening, shocking, and hilarious, Out There is a totally original account of their extraordinary exploits.