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Great rivers of the world

by Esther Singleton (1865–1930)

  • Free to read
  • 7 hours to read
  • 53 chapters

"Great Rivers of the World" by Esther Singleton is an edited anthology of travel and descriptive sketches written in the early 20th century. The volume gathers celebrated writers to portray major rivers through history, legend, landscape, and culture, privileging the picturesque and literary over the technical, and is accompanied by illustrations. The opening of Great Rivers of the World presents a preface in which Singleton explains the aim to collect evocative writing on famous streams, favoring antiquarian lore and scenic romance, followed by a wide-ranging contents list. Early chapters then unfold: Victor Hugo exalts the Rhine as Europe’s historic, many-faced river; A. Bowman Blake praises the Seine’s painterly light, rustic villages, and influence on French art; Sir William Hunter details the Ganges’ sanctity, pilgrimages, irrigation, and commerce; Pierre Loti paints a sensuous dawn ritual at Benares; Henry Gannett surveys the arid Colorado plateau and the sublimity of the Grand Canyon; John Wilson Croker meanders along Shakespeare’s Avon through Warwickshire sites like Kenilworth, Warwick, and Stratford; Charles Dickens recounts a steamboat descent of the St. Lawrence via the Thousand Islands to Montreal and Quebec; George Rawlinson outlines the Tigris’s sources, floods, and limited historical role; and Robert Louis Stevenson begins a lyrical canoeing passage on the swift, reed-fringed Oise.

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  • Rivers

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Victor Hugo

I love rivers; they do more than bear merchandise—ideas float along their surface. Rivers, like clarions, sing to the ocean of the beauty of the earth, the fertility of plains, and the splendour of cities.

Of all rivers, I prefer the Rhine. It is now a year, when passing the bridge of boats at Kehl, since I first saw it. I remember that I felt a certain respect, a sort of admiration, for this old, this classic stream. I never think of rivers—those great works of Nature, which are also great in history,—without emotion.

I remember the Rhone at Valserine; I saw it in 1825, in a pleasant excursion to Switzerland, which is one of the sweet, happy recollections of my early life. I remember with what noise, with what ferocious bellowing, the Rhone precipitated itself into the gulf whilst the frail bridge upon which I was standing was shaking beneath my feet. Ah! well! since that time, the Rhone brings to my mind the idea of a tiger,—the Rhine, that of a lion.

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Contents

Show all 53 chapters
  1. Preface
  2. Victor Hugo
  3. A. Bowman Blake
  4. Sir William W. Hunter
  5. Pierre Loti
  6. Henry Gannett
  7. John Wilson Croker
  8. Charles Dickens
  9. George Rawlinson
  10. Robert Louis Stevenson
  11. Esther Singleton
  12. Strother a. Smith
  13. Arthur Shadwell Martin
  14. The Danube
  15. J. Hampden Jackson
  16. Joseph Jones
  17. W. R. Carles
  18. Charles Dickens, Jr
  19. Timothy Dwight
  20. F. Warre Cornish
  21. Emily a. Richings
  22. Robert Walker
  23. The Volga
  24. J. Howard Reed
  25. William Ogilvie
  26. Victor Hugo
  27. The Loire
  28. Esther Singleton
  29. George Rawlinson
  30. A. R. Quinton
  31. The Indian River
  32. J. Howard Reed
  33. Isaac Taylor
  34. The Don
  35. J. Boddam-Whetham
  36. George G. Chisholm
  37. Mrs. Unsworth
  38. Henry D. Thoreau
  39. Henry Seebohm
  40. John Macwhirter
  41. Alexander D. Anderson
  42. Henry Drummond
  43. Ernest William White
  44. Sir Thomas Dick Lauder
  45. John Tyndall
  46. G. K. Gilbert
  47. Esther Singleton
  48. Angus B. Reach
  49. William Ogilvie
  50. Andrew Robert Fausset
  51. Henry D. Thoreau
  52. Arthur Shadwell Martin
  53. Edward Balfour

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About this edition

This free edition of Great rivers of the world by Esther Singleton comes from Project Gutenberg eBook #78095, released 2026-03-02. It is in the public domain in the United States, so you can read it here in full at no cost, on any phone, tablet or computer.

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