The night writer: The emergence of nocturnal travel writing

Abstract

In 1762, the philosopher and writer Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote in Emile (1979) that we are blind half our lives because of what we miss during the night. The notion that the night can offer a broader experience and understanding of people, culture and place is one that is particularly relevant to travel writing and travel writers, though it is a perspective that has not been widely studied. As such, this paper will explore the development of nocturnal travel writing. This awareness begins with the influence of the flâneur in Paris and London. The immersed perspective of the street wanderer inspired many writers, including Charles Dickens, who later wrote Night Walks in 1861 of his nocturnal London walking. While technology and security diminished the writers’ fascination of the night in the later 19th and 20th centuries, it has re-emerged as an important subgenre of contemporary travel writing. There is a range of diverse examples of nocturnal travel writing in the 21st century focusing on nature, social and cultural lives and non-English speaking countries. These examples present an opportunity to push the authentic boundaries of the travel writing form in an era of gimmicks and unimaginative storytelling. As a form which draws influence from the flâneur, psychogeography and the literary pedigree of writers such as De Quincey and Dickens, nocturnal travel writing offers the reader a new and imaginative rendering of the ‘other’ within different places, cultures and temporal zones.