Additional information
by Frederick Burnaby (Author)
First published in 1876, this is the story of soldier and adventurer Frederick Burnaby's fascinating and dangerous journey from the steppes of southern Russia to the city of Khiva in what is now Uzbekistan. Part travelogue and part daring exploits, Burnaby's entertaining account will appeal to armchair travelers, fans of adventure fiction, and anyone interested in firsthand accounts of the Great Game, when the Russian and British Empires vied for control of Central Asia. British soldier and writer FREDERICK BURNABY (1842-1885) was a member of the Royal Horse Guards, and in 1882, he became the first balloonist to cross the English Channel alone. Three years later, he died from a spear wound sustained in battle in the Sudan. He also wrote On Horseback Through Asia Minor (1878).
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In the winter of 1875, a young British officer set out across Central Asia on a strictly unofficial mission to investigate the latest secret Russian moves in the Great Game. His goal was the mysterious caravan city of Khiva, closed to all European travellers by the Russians following their seizure of it two years earlier. His aim was to discover whether, as many British strategists feared, this remote and dangerous oasis was about to be used as a springboard for an invasion of India. Unknown to his superiors, who would have forbidden the venture, Captain Frederick Gustavus Burnaby rode for over a thousand miles across steppe and desert, struggling through blizzards and snowdrifts, to reach forbidden Khiva. Ordered home by an alarmed government, Burnaby immediately sat down and wrote this best-selling account of his adventures, which was to become a Great Game classic, the first of two he was to publish.
