De Maistre reportedly did not think much of the work, but his elder brother Joseph, the renowned philosopher and counter-revolutionary, was so impressed with what he read that he arranged for it to be published, much to his younger brother's surprise. By the time of its publication in 1794 Xavier...

In 1790, Xavier de Maistre was 27 years old, and a soldier in the army of the Sardinian Kingdom, which covered swathes of modern-day Northern Italy and Southern France.

An impetuous young soldier, he was placed under house-arrest in Turin for fighting an illegal duel; ther...

It parodies the travel journals of the eighteenth-century (such as A Voyage Around the World by Louis de Bougainville, 1771), and could be read today as an early take on the modern vogue for "psychogeography" — each tiny thing that he encounters sends de Maistre into rhapsodies, and mundane journ...

But you must not let yourself think that instead of keeping my promise to describe my journey around my room, I am beating the bush to see how I can evade the difficulty. This would be a great mistake on your part. For our journey is really going: and, while my soul, falling back on her own r...