Composition and Character of the True Travels
The True Travels may be divided into two parts: the True Travels proper,
which makes up the first two-thirds of the book, and the "Continuation of
the Generall Historie," beginning on page 41, which constitutes the last third
of the work. Looking at the former first, aside from the confusion in chapter 1,
careful reading will separate the historical facts from Smith's subjective tales
of what he did and will also make it possible to distinguish what Smith saw
objectively in the countryside from what he subjectively encountered on the
battlefield. Throughout the work it is peculiarly necessary to distinguish
between Smith's statements of fact and his presentation of illustrative material.
The second part of the True Travels is a supplement to the Generall
Historie and can be dismissed briefly. It contains extracts from various sources
dealing with post-1624 events in America. Although these chapters contain
only secondhand information, they have some historical importance. To
these is appended a typically Smithian conclusion: a final chapter on the
barely relevant subject of the pirates who infested the seas during the late
sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.
Participation with Smith in his adventures is fortunately aided by the
chance existence of two versions of the text, the book under discussion and
the "Travels and Adventures" edited by Samuel Purchas and printed in his
Pilgrimes in 1625.
In contrast to the Purchas version, the
True Travels,
entered for publication in 1629, was prepared for the press by Smith himself,
but without noticeable benefit of any kind of editing.
The autobiographical first part obviously was the raison d'être of the
book as a whole. In this work, Smith himself is the central theme, and in that
respect the True Travels was one of the first two or three secular autobiographies
to appear in England.
Even then, it did not spring full-blown from
Smith's aging head. Occasional references to his youth appeared in his writings
almost from the beginning: in the
Map of Virginia's dedication to
Edward Seymour, the earl of Hertford; in the
Proceedings, 30; in the
Descrip-
tion of New England, on various pages, particularly in Richard Gunnell's
commendatory verses;
and, last and most important, in a reference printed
below as Fragment I, and in the first printing of the bulk of the
True Travels
in Samuel Purchas's
Pilgrimes, reprinted in this edition as Fragment J.
Pertaining to the True Travels primarily, as distinguished from "the
Purchas version" (as it may conveniently be called), the editorial commentary
provided here, other than the usual annotation, consists of the following:
in chapter 1, two lengthy passages have been reconstructed in the footnotes,
to clarify an obviously incoherent text; in the same vein, but rather to substantiate
Smith's account, special local studies bearing on chapters 4–8 are
discussed in this introduction under the heading "The Duke of Mercoeur's
Campaign in Hungary" (also treated below is the vexed question of Smith's
coat of arms); and finally, material pertinent to chapters 9–11, too considerable
for a footnote, has been taken up in "General Giorgio Basta's
Campaign in Transylvania," also below.
