An adventure in Uruguay - the Banda Oriental

With an afterword by Andreas Campomar

The Purple Land tells the story of Richard Lamb, an idealistic young Englishman, who spirits his new wife, Paquita, to Montevideo to escape the vengeance of her Argentine father. Here, he is catapulted into a series of picaresque adventures: horse-stealing, duelling, imprisonment and fighting on the losing side of a civil war, all the while falling serially and unsuitably in love.

Rooted in Hudson’s evocation of the simplicity and dignity of life on the pampas and his masterful depiction of its wildlife and landscape, The Purple Land is the first modern ‘road novel’. It is also a narrative of transformation, the Creolisation of an Englishman, redeemed by the heightened exuberance, energy and warmth of South America.

Eland also publish Far Away and Long Ago by W H Hudson.

‘the best work of gaucho literature.’  Jorge Luis Borges

‘The Purple Land is a very sinister book if read too late in life. It recounts splendid imaginary amorous adventures of a perfect English gentleman in an intensely romantic land.’ Ernest Hemingway