One rainy morning in the winter of 1909, a guy with an altogether average appearance about him quit his work at the London Morning Leader, kissed his wife and children goodbye, and took a teach to Swansea in Wales, where he talked his method aboard a freighter bound for the top reaches from the Amazon. Three years later, Tomlinson released a publication about his travels. This book produced him famous.

“The Sea and the Jungle,” wrote David McCord, “can be an invitation to a new experience. It really is a lot more than that: an invitation to a new attitude toward lifestyle. Sadness perhaps, but no harshness; concern, but no diminution of heart; doubt, but no hauling down the ensign. ‘The correct good reserve,’ says Mr. Tomlinson, ‘is normally always a reserve of travel: it is in regards to a life’s journey.’”