John Thomas Codman

John Thomas Codman was an American Episcopal clergyman and author best known for travel writing. He wrote about life at sea and about the places he visited, bringing together practical detail, curiosity, and a storyteller’s eye.

His books include The Round Trip by Way of Panama Through California, Oregon, Japan, China, India and Egypt and The Cruise of the Scythian in the West Indies. Those works suggest the range of his interests: ocean travel, global routes, and the people and customs he encountered along the way.

Today, Codman is mainly remembered through these vivid accounts of late 19th- and early 20th-century travel, which give modern readers a window into how Americans experienced the wider world in his era.