This Unknown Land

This unknown land: How geographers, pharmacists, novelists, plant enthusiasts, war correspondents, engineers, medical professionals, and tourists discovered and perceived Bulgaria in the 19th century. The book is almost 600 pages and is currently only available in English. It is being published for the first time. Its author, Marco Schöller, is a lecturer in Arabic studies and Oriental studies at the University of Westphalia in Münster, Germany. The book is based on hundreds of travelogues and personal notes of travelers from Western Europe who visited Bulgaria in the 19th century. Most of the texts are unknown to Bulgarian historiography. The author spent several years researching and selecting sources, many of which are excerpts from contemporary European press and have been recently digitized. How Geographers, Pharmacists, Novelists, Plant Hunters, War Correspondents, Engineers, Medical Men & Tourists Discovered & Experienced Nineteenth-Century Bulgaria What Western and Central Europeans did, saw and experienced in nineteenth-century Bulgaria is the subject of this book. Most of them came from France, Great Britain, the German states and the Austrian Empire, others from Belgium, Denmark or Switzerland. For reasons still to be given, special emphasis is placed on German-speaking visitors to Bulgaria and their writings. Their story has never been told in any comprehensive way in a Western language, and it is quite a story. Much is made accessible here for the first time in English.