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Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal 6 2o20 (Travel) Rhian Waller | Postcolonial Pictures 57 Broadly, patterns of western supremacy are embedded by positioning the reader as an ana- logue to Theroux the traveller. It is likely that, from the emphasis, in his early texts, on high lite- rature from the western canon, his preference for Anglo-influenced manners, customs and for the company of people of his own class and tastes, that the imagined, ideal reader likewise has much in common with Theroux. It is therefore fitting that the composition of the book covers places us in a simulation of his position, which frequently — figuratively and literally — looks down on his less privileged subjects. However, though his writing cannot be all-reflecting, as it is built from a series of impressions and subjective observations, it does make space for people of different creeds, colours and classes within the text. A significant number of the accompanying book covers do not. By way of speculation, it is possible the removal of the human element from these covers is a deliberate reach toward a form of neutrality and timelessness: if no natives are depicted, then the covers cannot be accused of signifying stereotypes. However, this has the troubling side-effect of diminishing the presence of those people who belong to a landscape, and to whom the lands- cape is home. The fact that, where people do feature, light-skinned westerners are consistently depicted as engaged in privileged leisure-focused activities compared to the ‘foreign’ subjects most often photographed at work, undermines notions of neutrality. The photographs are undoubtedly aesthetically pleasing; the titles are evocative and the Penguin branding is restrained but distinctive. As commercial artefacts, they function as effec- tive signs. As cultural artefacts, they suggest something simultaneously less and more. They flatten and reduce the landscapes and countries they commodify, but they also reveal more about the nature of western-centric travel writing than intended. They indicate that these covers are, consciously or unconsciously, devised to cater for a market that appreciates or expects to be entertained from a position of privilege. It also indicates the imbalances of historic travel writing are much diminished, but still persist today. Bibliography Achebe, Chinua. 1990. Hopes and Impediments (London: Heinemann) Barthes, R. 1964. ‘Rhétorique de l’image [Rhetorics of the image]’. Communications, (41), 40–51. Blanton, Casey. 2002. Travel Writing, the Self and the World (London: Routledge) Borg Barthet, Stella. 2009. Shared Waters: Soundings in Postcolonial Literatures (Amster- dam: Rodopi) Brody, Hugh. 2004. Maps and Dreams (London: Faber and Faber) Bryson, B. 2015. Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe (London: Transworld) Bryson, B. 2015. Notes from a Small Island (London: Transworld) Burrows, Karen/Pearson, Amy/Wragg, Nick. 2016. Engaging Chinese Students in Teaching and Learning at Western Higher Education Institutions (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing) Chandler, Daniel. 2002. Semiotics: the Basics (London: Routledge) Dann, Graham. 1996. ‘The people of tourist brochures’, in Tom Selwyn, ed, The Tourist Image: Myths and Myth Making in Tourism (Chichester: John Wiley), 61–81 De Saussure, Ferdinand. 1959. Course in General Linguistics (New York: Philosophical Library)