A short life of the author
Jonathan Raban (1942–2023) was the finest travel writer in the English language of his generation — a writer whose journeys down the Mississippi, around the coast of Britain, across the Montana badlands, and up the Inside Passage to Alaska produced books that function simultaneously as adventure narratives, cultural criticism, and works of literary art. His prose — elegant, witty, precisely observed — placed him in the tradition of Robert Louis Stevenson and Patrick Leigh Fermor, but his analytical intelligence and his willingness to engage with political and economic reality gave his work a substance that pure aesthetes rarely achieve.
Life and Career
Raban was born in Fakenham, Norfolk, England, the son of a clergyman. He studied at the University of Hull (where Philip Larkin was the librarian) and taught English literature at universities in Wales and London before becoming a full-time writer. He moved to Seattle, Washington, in 1990, where he lived until his death.
Soft City (1974) was an early work of urban criticism about London — a study of city life as performance and self-invention that anticipated much later urban sociology. Arabia Through the Looking Glass (1979) was a travel book about the Gulf states during the oil boom.
Old Glory: An American Voyage (1981) was his masterpiece of travel writing — an account of a solo journey by small boat down the Mississippi River from Minneapolis to the Gulf of Mexico. The book is a love letter to Mark Twain and Huckleberry Finn, a portrait of small-town America in the Reagan era, and a meditation on the relationship between rivers and the imagination. It won the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award and the Heinemann Award.
Coasting (1986) — a circumnavigation of Britain by sailboat — was equally accomplished. Bad Land: An American Romance (1996, National Book Critics Circle Award) was perhaps his most original work: an account of the homesteaders who settled the Montana badlands in the early twentieth century, lured by railroad propaganda and government promises, and the communities they built and lost. The book moved between historical research and contemporary reporting with seamless grace.
Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meanings (2000) was a solo voyage up the Inside Passage from Seattle to Juneau, Alaska, that became a meditation on wilderness, commerce, and personal crisis (his marriage ended during the trip). My Holy War (2006) was a collection of essays about 9/11 and its aftermath, written from the perspective of a British intellectual in America.
Key Works
- Old Glory (1981)
- Coasting (1986)
- Bad Land (1996)
- Passage to Juneau (2000)
Collecting Raban
Old Glory first edition (Collins, UK, 1981 / Simon & Schuster, US, 1981) signed brings $50–$150. Bad Land first edition (Picador, UK, 1996 / Pantheon, US, 1996) signed is $40–$100. UK first editions are generally preferred. Raban signed at events and readings, particularly in Seattle and London. His death in 2023 has fixed the supply. His bibliography is manageable and all titles are worth collecting. Travel writing has a dedicated collector base, and Raban’s literary stature within the genre ensures lasting demand.