[NFBMT] James Holman from Wikipedia

Sat Mar 10 02:22:47 UTC 2018

Read this book on Holman in my Missoula book club a number of years
ago now. This is the BARD listing:

A sense of the world: how a blind man became history's greatest traveler DB62703
Roberts, Jason. Reading time: 12 hours, 41 minutes.
Read by David Cutler.

Disability
Travel

Biography of Englishman James Holman (1786-1857), who was blinded at
twenty-five after serving in the Napoleonic wars and who then achieved
fame as a world traveler. Quoting from Holman's memoirs, describes how
he fought slavery in Africa, survived captivity in Siberia, charted
the Australian outback, and published three books. 2006.

On 3/9/18, d m gina via NFBMT <nfbmt at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> It is interesting they never shared if he used a cane or not or if
> anyone ever thought of that.
> Thanks for sharing.
>
> Original message:
>>> From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
>
>
>
>> James Holman
>
>> Born 15 October 1786
>
>> Died 29 July 1857 (aged 70)
>
>
>
>> James Holman FRS (15 October 1786 – 29 July 1857), known as the "Blind
>> Traveller," was a British adventurer, author and social observer, best
>> known
>> for his writings on his extensive travels. Completely blind and suffering
>> from debilitating pain and limited mobility, he undertook a series of
>> solo
>> journeys that were unprecedented both in their extent of geography and
>> method
>> of "human echolocation". In 1866, the journalist William Jerdan wrote
>> that
>> "From Marco Polo to Mungo Park, no three of the most famous travellers,
>> grouped together, would exceed the extent and variety of countries
>> traversed
>> by our blind countryman." In 1832, Holman became the first blind person
>> to
>> circumnavigate the globe. He continued travelling, and by October 1846
>> had
>> visited every inhabited continent.
>
>
>
>> Holman was born in Exeter, the son of an apothecary. He entered the
>> British
>> Royal Navy in 1798 as first-class volunteer, and was appointed lieutenant
>> in
>> April 1807. In 1810, while on the Guerriere off the coast of the Americas,
>> he
>> was invalided by an illness that first afflicted his joints, then finally
>> his
>> vision. At the age of 25, he was rendered totally and permanently blind.
>
>
>
>> In recognition of the fact that his affliction was duty-related, he was
>> in
>> 1812 appointed to the Naval Knights of Windsor, with a lifetime grant of
>> care
>> in Windsor Castle. This position demanded he attend church service twice
>> daily as his only duty in return for room and board, but the quietness of
>> such a life harmonized so poorly with his active habits and keen
>> interests,
>> physically making him ill, that he requested multiple leaves of absence
>> on
>> health grounds, first to study medicine and literature at the University
>> of
>> Edinburgh, then to go abroad on a Grand Tour from 1819 to 1821 when he
>> journeyed through France, Italy, Switzerland, the parts of Germany
>> bordering
>> on the Rhine, Belgium and the Netherlands. On his return he published The
>> Narrative of a Journey through France, etc. (London, 1822).
>
>
>
>> He again set out in 1822 with the incredible design of making the circuit
>> of
>> the world from west to east, something which at the time was almost
>> unheard
>> of by a lone traveller, blind or not - but he travelled through Russia as
>> far
>> east as the Mongolian frontier of Irkutsk. There he was suspected by the
>> Czar
>> of being a spy who might publicize the extensive activities of the
>> Russian
>> American Company should he travel further east, and was conducted back
>> forcibly to the frontiers of Poland. He returned home by Austria, Saxony,
>> Prussia and Hanover, when he then published Travels through Russia,
>> Siberia,
>> etc. (London, 1825).
>
>
>
>> Shortly afterwards he again set out to accomplish by a somewhat different
>> method the design which had been frustrated by the Russian authorities;
>> and
>> an account of his remarkable achievement was published in four volumes in
>> 1834-1835, under the title of A Voyage Round the World, including Travels
>> in
>> Africa, Asia, Australasia, America, etc., from 1827 to 1832.
>
>
>
>> Holman was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (UK), and of the
>> Linnaean
>> Society (UK). Charles Darwin, in The Voyage of the Beagle, cited Holman's
>> writings as a source on the flora of the Indian Ocean. On Fernando Po
>> Island,
>> now part of Equatorial Guinea, the British Government named the Holman
>> River
>> in his honor, commemorating his contributions to fighting the slave trade
>> in
>> the region during the 1820s.
>
>
>
>> His last journeys were through Spain, Portugal, Moldavia, Montenegro,
>> Syria
>> and Turkey. Within a week after finishing an autobiography, Holman's
>> Narratives of His Travels, he died in London on 29 July 1857. This last
>> work
>> was never published, and likely has not survived.
>
>
>
>> While his early works were generally well received, only partially as a
>> novelty, over time competitors and skeptics introduced doubt into the
>> public
>> consciousness about the reliability of Holman's "observations". In a time
>> when blind people were thought to be almost totally helpless, and usually
>> given a bowl to beg with, Holman's ability to sense his surroundings by
>> the
>> reverberations of a tapped cane or horse's hoof-beats was unfathomable.
>
>
>
>> See also
>
>> O'Byrne, William Richard (1849).
>
>> "Wikisource link to Holman, James".
>
>> Wikisource link to A Naval Biographical Dictionary.
>
>> John Murray. Wikisource.
>
>
>
>> References
>
>> Roberts, Jason (2006). A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became
>> History's
>> Greatest Traveler, HarperCollins Publishing, New York, NY, 2006 ISBN
>> 0-00-716106-9  This article incorporates text from a publication now in
>> the
>> public domain:
>
>
>
>> Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Holman, James". Encyclopædia Britannica. 13
>> (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 616.
>
>
>
>> External links
>
>
>
>>        Wikiquote has quotations related to: James Holman
>
>>        Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
>> article
>> Holman, James.
>
>> Works by James Holman at Project Gutenberg
>
>> Works by or about James Holman at Internet Archive
>
>> A Holman site on Jason Roberts' web-site
>
>> Audio excerpts of Roberts' book
>
>> "Tales of a Blind Traveler" on NPR 19 August 2006 (includes audio)
>
>
>
>> Joy Breslauer, President
>
>> National Federation of the Blind of Montana
>
>> Web Site: http://www.nfbofmt.org <http://www.nfbofmt.org/>
>
>
>
>> Live the life you want
>
>
>
>> The National Federation of the Blind is a community of members and
>> friends
>> who believe in the hopes and dreams of the nation’s blind. Every day we
>> work
>> together to help blind people live the lives they want.
>
>
>
>> _______________________________________________
>> NFBMT mailing list
>> NFBMT at nfbnet.org
>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfbmt_nfbnet.org
>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
>> NFBMT:
>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nfbmt_nfbnet.org/dmgina%40mysero.net
>
> --
> --Dar
> skype: dmgina23
>   FB: dmgina
> www.twitter.com/dmgina
> every saint has a past
> every sinner has a future
>
> _______________________________________________
> NFBMT mailing list
> NFBMT at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfbmt_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> NFBMT:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nfbmt_nfbnet.org/burke.dall%40gmail.com
>

-- 
Dan Burke
President, NFB of Denver

"Blindness is not what holds you back.  You can live the life you want!"
My Cell:  406.546.8546
Twitter:  @DallDonal