Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes is one of Robert Louis Stevenson's earliest published works and is considered a pioneering classic of outdoor literature. Travels recounts Stevenson's 12-day, 120-mile solo hiking journey through the sparsely populated and impoverished areas of the Cévennes mountains in south-central France in 1878. The character of Modestine, a stubborn, manipulative donkey he could never quite get the better of, is memorable. The Cévennes was the site of a Protestant rebellion around 1702, severely suppressed by Catholic Louis XIV. The Protestant insurgents, a minority population in the region, were known as the Camisards. Stevenson was well-versed in the history, romantically imagining scenes from the rebellion along the way. He notes that the Catholics and the Protestants, at the time of his travels, lived peaceably but with an absolute divide between the two communities.

作者独自一人来到山地市镇勒奠纳斯捷，赶着毛驴横穿塞文山区，一路上与偶遇的人闲聊，夜里露宿星光下。随着作者旅程的推进，法国南部山区的风物徐徐呈现在读者面前。宁静贫瘠的山野、简单粗陋的山村小旅馆、迟钝热心的乡农、热情好客的老板娘、坚毅严肃的修士，都在作者笔下跃然纸上。在作者风趣而又略带自嘲的口吻中，一次窘境百出的"苦旅"变得趣味盎然。