What is a summary of The Book of Travels by Evliya Celebi?

Derviş Mehmed Zillî (1611–1682), also known by the name Evliya Çelebi, was an explorer who traveled around the Ottoman Empire (the central part of which would be modern Turkey). He is known for his Seyâhatnâme ("Book of Travel").

This work exemplifies a genre of travel notes that became popular in the medieval Islamic world. It is a miscellaneous combination of autobiography, travelogue proper, and descriptions of interesting ideas or artifacts the traveler discovers. Although the genre is nonfiction, Evliya Çelebi does include many tall tales and exaggerations and should not always assumed to be factual.

Born to a wealthy family, the author was a devout Muslim who felt he had an almost religious vocation to travel and explore the world from a very young age. He started by taking long walks around Istanbul and progressed to taking official and military jobs that would allow him to explore the world. As he traveled, he displayed great curiosity about everything from local languages to crafts and history to nature, constantly supplementing his observations by seeking out local experts.

What are some insights on "The Book of Travels" by Evliya Celebi?

Evliya Çelebi (1611-1684) traveled through the Ottoman Empire in the seventeenth century. He grew up in Istanbul and reportedly spent forty years traveling across Anatolia, as well as reaching Cairo, Vienna, the Crimea, and the Caucasus.

His 10-volume travel narrative, the Seyahatname, or Book of Travels, provides an unmatched record of his eyewitness experience, as well as reported incidents, of all walks of Ottoman life. While some reports are clearly invented and fantastic, the book is considered a forerunner of scientific geography and ethnography. An alternate title is the Tarihi seyyah, "Chronicle of a Traveler."

The manuscript was completed in 1683 in Turkish, and in the 1740s, it was known to total over 4,000 pages. The first full Turkish publication came out piecemeal from 1896-1938. Portions appeared in German in the 1810s-1850s and in English in the mid-twentieth century.

A new, authoritative English-language edition of selected portions, translated and edited by Robert Dankoff and Sooyong Kim, was published in 2010.