Hall, Basil, 1788-1844

Basil Hall (1788–1844) was a British naval officer and travel writer. Drawing on his own voyages and journeys, he wrote several travel accounts concerning Asia and the Americas, recording the sights, local customs and social conditions he encountered along the way. His representative works include Account of a Voyage of Discovery and The Lieutenant and Commander; the former is a narrative of maritime exploration, while the latter relates to naval life. Public information on Hall's early years, education and the specific details of his voyages is limited, and this entry makes no speculation on them. Judging from the works available, his writing is grounded in firsthand observation and combines description with narrative, offering British readers of his time a firsthand travel record of Asia and the Americas and leaving later scholars a useful text for the study of nineteenth-century maritime travel writing.