The Way To Xanadu

I picked up this book based on the evocative Xanadu of the title, and an interest in the Mongol / Chinese history. I hadn't researched the basis of the book at the time.
It is actually about the famous poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge Kubla Khan, the first line at least, many of us probably know as a rhyme.
In Xanadu did Khubla KhanA stately pleasure dome decree:
The author examines Coleridge, the circumstances of him writing this poem, and the books he had read prior to writing from where he apparently drew his inspiration.

The sort version is that Coleridge, in 1797, miss-abusing opium by this time woke in a chair where he had been reading ‘Purchas's pilgrimage' somewhat of a daze and quickly scribbled down the lines before they faded from memory. After 55 lines he was interrupted, and when he returned the remainder was beyond his memory. He didn't seek to publish his poem until 1815.

And so from there the author divides her book into sections. In the first, subtitled The Walls and Towers, the author travels to China to visit the site of Xanadu (Shangdu) in the Chinese autonomous region of Inner Mongolia, northwest of Beijing, near the border with Mongolia.
Intermingled with her own travel, Alexander gives a potted history of travellers who visited Xanadu, and briefly it's rise and fall. The book of feature in this chapter is Samuel Purchas's Purchas his Pilgrimage, or at least the small part related to Xanadu.

Next in Coleridge's reading list is John Bartram's Travels Through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive Territories of the Muscogulges, or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws - snappy title, right? Here the author talks of her childhood in Florida and of Tarzan films shot here. This section was titled The Mighty Fountain.

The next chapter, titled The Cave of Ice features Kashmir. There were a number of quotations in Coleridge's notes / reading list related to Kashmmir - The History of Hindostan by Reverend Thomas Maurice; Memoir of a Map of Hindostan by Major James Rennell; Journey to Kachemire by Francois Bernier. Again the author heads off to travel to the areas mentioned, taking part in a pilgrimage, and intermingling more history of the area.

The next chapter takes in Ethiopia, the book from Coleridge's reading is by James Bruce, titled Travels to Discover the Sources of the Nile. The chapter is titled Mount Abora (and the Abyssinian Maid). It is noted that the book related to the Blue Nile, the source of which is Lake Tana. We also return in part to Purcas's Pilgrimage, as he also writes about Ethiopia. Again the author travels on a route assessed as being relevant to the writings above.

In each of these chapters the author picks up key points where description or phrasing is taken from or influenced by the books Coleridge had written in the months prior to his laudanum induced nap. She then wraps up in a chapter based in Exmoor, where Coleridge lived and wrote.

It was perhaps not the fastest moving book. I enjoyed it in parts - the travel in China, Kashmir and Ethiopia was interesting, and the narrative around where the inspiration came from kept me interested enough. Perhaps not a book to read for the travel alone, as that can be found in more detail and probably in better form elsewhere, but for those interested in the history and inspiration of the writing of Coleridge, sure.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43991/kubla-khan

3.5 stars rounded down.