The Traveller
The Revolutionary Life of George Forster and his Search for Humanity
Published on 2. June 2026
Book
Hardback
512 pages
978-0-241-71121-7 (ISBN)
Description
'Andrea Wulf belongs to the small, splendid canon of writers unafraid to render fact with feeling' Maria Popova, creator of The Marginalian and author of Figuring
An inspiring biography of the remarkable naturalist, explorer and revolutionary, by the bestselling author of The Invention of Nature
George Forster was a man out of time: he journeyed to the far reaches of the known world and challenged the worldviews of eighteenth-century Europe with radical ideas about equality and freedom. Celebrated during his lifetime, he knew Goethe, Benjamin Franklin, Mary Wollstonecraft and Alexander von Humboldt but has since been largely forgotten by history.
The Traveller seeks to restore Forster as one of the great visionaries of his era. At the age of seventeen he joined Captain Cook's second voyage - an exploration of vast contrasts from the icy world of Antarctica to the tropical islands of the South Pacific. A brilliant mind driven by boundless curiosity, he studied the diverse nature, people and cultures he encountered and came back imbued with a deep belief in the equality of races. On his return he was feted in England, France, Germany and Poland, using his fame to advocate freedom and human rights and argue against empire, racism and slavery. He admired strong and educated women and was proud to have daughters. The book traces how - inspired by the French Revolution - he became a leader of the short-lived Republic of Mainz and was eventually forced into exile in Paris during the Reign of Terror.
Following in Forster's footsteps from Europe to Tahiti, and drawing on a wealth of correspondence mostly unpublished in English, Andrea Wulf paints a portrait of a remarkable, passionate figure unbound by place, people or establishment. She vividly conveys his extraordinary quest to find what connects us rather than what sets us apart.
An inspiring biography of the remarkable naturalist, explorer and revolutionary, by the bestselling author of The Invention of Nature
George Forster was a man out of time: he journeyed to the far reaches of the known world and challenged the worldviews of eighteenth-century Europe with radical ideas about equality and freedom. Celebrated during his lifetime, he knew Goethe, Benjamin Franklin, Mary Wollstonecraft and Alexander von Humboldt but has since been largely forgotten by history.
The Traveller seeks to restore Forster as one of the great visionaries of his era. At the age of seventeen he joined Captain Cook's second voyage - an exploration of vast contrasts from the icy world of Antarctica to the tropical islands of the South Pacific. A brilliant mind driven by boundless curiosity, he studied the diverse nature, people and cultures he encountered and came back imbued with a deep belief in the equality of races. On his return he was feted in England, France, Germany and Poland, using his fame to advocate freedom and human rights and argue against empire, racism and slavery. He admired strong and educated women and was proud to have daughters. The book traces how - inspired by the French Revolution - he became a leader of the short-lived Republic of Mainz and was eventually forced into exile in Paris during the Reign of Terror.
Following in Forster's footsteps from Europe to Tahiti, and drawing on a wealth of correspondence mostly unpublished in English, Andrea Wulf paints a portrait of a remarkable, passionate figure unbound by place, people or establishment. She vividly conveys his extraordinary quest to find what connects us rather than what sets us apart.
Reviews / Votes
Andrea Wulf's splendid biography rescues a dizzying life... [George Forster's] was, frankly, an almost indecently interesting life story [that] provides the contented reader with uninterrupted fascination. How many lives encompass Maori tribes, Easter Island, Habsburg Austria and the French Revolution? Wulf, the author of acclaimed books on Alexander von Humboldt and the German Romantics, tells it all with the expected panache -- James Marriott * The Times * Fascinating ... a compelling life [that] presages our present-day attitudes to global difference, race and diversity. Wulf cleaves closely to archival verities, avoiding any tendency towards overembellished writing -- Robert Mayhew * Times Literary Supplement * The singular and spectacular trajectory of George Forster [offers] an exemplary tour of the High Enlightenment .... In this lucent, affectionate retelling of his life, Andrea Wulf makes a convincing case for George as a thinker who has too long been dismissed or ignored ... There is a briskness to her prose and a simplicity to her structure ... She shares his sense of wonder at the beauty of emerald islands like Tahiti as well as his outrage at the violence perpetrated by the sailors who were taking part in what was clearly a colonial project ... An irresistible biography -- Peter Moore * Literary Review * Powerful ... exemplary ... Andrea Wulf draws on Forster's publications and personal archives to reconstruct the trajectory of this remarkable, compellingly humane, figure -- Sudhir Hazareesingh * Spectator * Award-winning historian Wulf draws on abundant archival sources to create a meticulously researched life of George Forster - Polish-born naturalist, ethnographer, explorer, and German revolutionary. Wulf amply restores his stature as a brilliant mind [in this] stirring, empathetic portrait * Kirkus Reviews * The dauntless Andrea Wulf has gone adventuring, and returned with this enthralling account of young, nomadic George Forster. Her superb narrative shimmers with scholarly detail and magnificently sustains the "breathless exhilaration" of his journeys, his extraordinarily liberal and observant mind and the intense emotional drama of his life. A combination of panoramic travelogue and tender psychological study animated at every point by Wulf's own travels and research, The Traveller is hypnotically successful and wonderfully restores George Forster as a major historical figure of early European Romanticism -- Richard Holmes As George Forster circumnavigates the globe, Wulf circumnavigates the Enlightenment mind in all its complexity, making for a doubly brilliant and breathtaking adventure -- Sue Prideaux Unfailingly and inspiringly humane, George Forster is the overlooked tragic hero of the European Enlightenment. With her characteristic combination of scholarship and empathy, Andrea Wulf conjures the global range of his curiosity, and the poignant wilderness of his family life. This book is the memorial that he has long deserved -- Neil MacGregor A remarkable biography of a remarkable man. Wulf's books are always horizon-expanding, but with this one she has excelled herself. I loved it -- Tom Holland Andrea Wulf belongs to the small, splendid canon of writers unafraid to render fact with feeling. The Traveller is a work of devotion and rigor celebrating a man's courage to look past the horizon of his era's assumptions -- Maria PopovaMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Penguin Books Ltd
Dimensions
Height: 238 mm
Width: 166 mm
Thickness: 37 mm
Weight
929 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-241-71121-7 (9780241711217)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
06/2026
Penguin
€14.99
Available for download
Person
Andrea Wulf was born in India and moved to Germany as a child. She lives in London and is the author of several books, including The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World (Winner of the 2015 Costa Biography Award and the 2016 Royal Society Science Book Prize) and Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and the Invention of the Self. A member of PEN American Center and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, she is currently a Miller Scholar at the Santa Fe Institute.