author
Rollo Gillespie Burslem
A British soldier-traveler, he left behind a vivid firsthand account of Afghanistan during the First Anglo-Afghan War. His best-known book, A Peep into Toorkisthān, offers readers a close-up view of a region that was little known to most English audiences of his time.
1 Audiobook
A Peep into Toorkisthan
by Rollo Gillespie Burslem
About the author
Born in 1813 and dying in 1896, Rollo Gillespie Burslem served as an officer in the 13th Prince Albert's Light Infantry Regiment. The Library of Congress notes that he was part of the Anglo-Indian Army of the Indus during the opening phase of the First Anglo-Afghan War, and that his regiment later joined the occupying force in Afghanistan.
Burslem is remembered mainly for A Peep into Toorkisthān, a travel narrative drawn from weeks taken out of his life as a soldier in Afghanistan. Rather than reading like a distant history, the book gives a direct, on-the-ground sense of the places he saw and the conditions he traveled through.
For modern readers, his work has lasting interest as both military memoir and travel writing. It captures the curiosity, hazards, and narrow viewpoints of a British officer moving through Central Asia in the 1840s, which makes it useful not just as an adventure story but also as a historical snapshot of its era.