Travelling About

Adventurous Women

   In my recent post about Northwestern University Press's "Marlboro Travel Series" I noticed, when finishing it, that two of the works are by women: the ones by Freya Stark and Ella Maillart. Then I remembered Virago Press which began in the 1970s to publish works by interesting and adventurous women. At the risk of being accused of 'appropriation', I will say in my defence that I am trying only to achieve some balance and am promoting books by women. There is below even one by a Canadian woman.

   If you are interested in books for your club, or trying to lure your daughter or granddaughter away from a screen, check out the list below (trigger alert: some of these works might be too adventurous and scary for you sons or grandsons. Perhaps I should issue another one - some of these women might not pass muster when viewed through the very narrow 'post-colonial' lens.) 

   If you are not that interested, then simply purchase the abridged version noted above. But, if you are curious about such things as Untrodden Peaks and Unfrequented Valleys, then peruse the list below. You will also benefit from my blurbs and see that one of the young women kept a snake in her hair and that Ms Birtles was a rather naughty girl.

   These books are all readily available and some can be read for free via the Internet (see, e.g. High Albania and Station Life in New Zealand where I have provided direct links.) The titles that are bolded are available close by at Western University.

A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains by Isabella L. Bird.
Bird flew around. Find her below in Persia, Japan and the Yangtze Valley.

China to Me by Emily Hahn
Got a degree in Mining Engineering at the U. of Wisconsin before leaving for Europe and hiking across Africa.

The Cruel Way by Ella Maillart (Below in Iran in 1939/1940)

Apart from travelling and writing, she competed in the 1924 Olympics (as a sailor) and was a skier as well as the captain of the Swiss field hockey team.

Death's Other Kingdom by Gamel Woolsey
Born on a South Carolina plantation, she died in Spain. See the very interesting Wiki entry for her.

The Desert and the Sown: The Syrian Adventures of the Female Lawrence of Arabia by Gertrude Bell.
Surely the most popular 'Gertrude' ever.

Farewell Spain by Kate O'Brien
"This distinctly personal elegy was written during the early days of the Spanish Civil War by a writer whose future was indelibly marked by a year of travelling in a unique and changing country. A series of reminiscences, impressions and vivid insights, Kate O'Brien's thoughtful journey offers something unique at every stage, and captures perfectly the spirit of a lost place and the experience of travel and memory."

The Gobi Desert by Mildred Cable.
Surely the most popular 'Mildred' and this book "may be the best of many good books about Central Asia and the old Silk Road through the deserts of Western China."

High Albania by M. E. Durham
This is the first sentence from the no nonsense Preface which is available here:
"IF a book cannot speak for itself, it is idle to speak for it. I will waste but few words on a Preface. In my two previous Balkan books I strove to give the national points of view, the aims and aspirations, the manners and customs, of the Serbs and of the mixed population of Macedonia. I would now do the same for the people of High Albania."

In The Vine Country by E. OE. Somerville.
"Somerville was a devoted sportswoman who, in 1903, had become master of the West Carbery Foxhounds." She is found again below in Connemara. See also: the Wiki entry for Somerville and Ross. 

Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan : Including a Summer in the Upper Karun Region and a Visit to the Nestorian Rayahs. Vols. I, II by Isabella L. Bird

Letters from Egypt by Lucie Duff Gordon
"By the age of 13 she was reading the "Odyssey" in the original. She also kept her pet snake twined into her plaited hair, and was thought to be "un peu unmanageable" by her mother and "a potential homicide" by a friend of the family."

The London Journal of Flora Tristan by Flora Tristan.
Peruvian born, Flora Tristan's life, works, and ideals have proved fruitful for the excavation of women's work through time. See Peregrinations below.

My Journey to Lhasa by Alexandra David-Néel.
This should be enough for some of you: She "was a Belgian–French explorer, spiritualist, Buddhist, anarchist, opera singer, and writer."

North-west by North by Dora Birtles.
An Aussie and surely the most popular 'Birtles'. "She was ahead of her time in studying at the University of Sydney in a period when few women received a tertiary education. However, she was suspended in 1923 for a poem appearing in the literary magazine Hermes, which describes post-coital bliss. Her future husband, poet and journalist Bert Birtles, was expelled for a still more explicit poem describing their tryst on the roof of the university quadrangle."

The Passionate Nomad: The Diary of Isabelle Eberhardt by Isabelle Eberhardt.
"Eberhardt moved to Algeria in May 1897. She dressed as a man and converted to Islam, eventually adopting the name Si Mahmoud Saadi. Eberhardt's unorthodox behaviour made her an outcast among European settlers in Algeria and the French administration."

Peregrinations of a Pariah 1833-1834 by Flora Tristan
See "The Bonus" below.

Roughing it in the Bush by Susanna Moodie.
You will know enough about her, but probably not that she was born in Bungay which is in Suffolk.

Station Life in New Zealand by Lady Barker.
It begins at sea and here are the first few lines from Project Gutenberg:
Port Phillip Hotel, Melbourne. September 22d, 1865. .... Now I must give you an account of our voyage: it has been a very quick one for the immense distance traversed, sometimes under canvas, but generally steaming. We saw no land between the Lizard and Cape Otway light—that is, for fifty-seven days: and oh, the monotony of that time!—the monotony of it! Our decks were so crowded that we divided our walking hours, in order that each set of passengers might have space to move about....

Through Connemara in a Governess Cart by E. OE. Somerville

Travels in West Africa by Mary Kingsley. 1982.
I discovered this in the stacks years ago and enjoyed it. "The notable success of Travels in West Africa was due in no small part to the vigour and droll humour of writing, that, in the guise of a ripping yarn, never wavers from its true purpose – to complete the work her father had left undone."

Unbeaten Tracks in Japan by Isabella L. Bird

Untrodden Peaks and Unfrequented Valleys: A Midsummer Ramble in the Dolomites by Amelia B. Edwards.
If, like me, you are untalented, this you will find irritating: "She published her first poem at the age of seven and her first story at the age of twelve....In addition, Edwards became an artist....Thirdly, Edwards took up composing and performing music for some years, until she suffered a bout of typhus in 1849....Other interests she pursued included pistol shooting, riding and mathematics..." 

Up the Country; Letters From India by Emily Eden.
She wrote novels as well and these two titles are good ones:
"Eden wrote two successful novels: The Semi-Detached House (1859) and The Semi-Attached Couple (1860). The latter was written in 1829, but not published until 1860. Both have a comic touch that critics have compared with that of Jane Austen, who was Emily's favourite author.[6] The first of the two has been described as "an accomplished study in the social contrasts of aristocratic style, bourgeois respectability and crass vulgarity."

The Virago Book of Women Travellers by Mary Morris

West with the Night by Beryl Markham.
"On 4 September 1936, she took off from Abingdon, England. After a 20-hour flight, her Percival Vega Gull, The Messenger, suffered fuel starvation due to icing of the fuel tank vents, and she crash-landed at Baleine Cove on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada. She thereby became the first woman to cross the Atlantic east-to-west solo, and the first person to make it from England to North America non-stop from east to west. She was celebrated as an aviation pioneer." I have a copy of her biography: Straight On Till Morning, and will give it to you if you email me.

Yangtze Valley and Beyond by Isabella L. Bird. 1985.
"In January 1896, at the age of 64, the indomitable Isabella Bird set off to explore the Yangtze River and the lonely mountain region of north-west China. A veteran of twenty years travel in America, Asia and the Near East, it was her last great adventure, but one as full of drama and spectacle as anything that had gone before. Eschewing the leisure enjoyed by England's expatriate community in Shanghai, she was thrilled and occasionally aghast at what she found in the little-known land which lay beyond. Travelling alone by riverboat and basket chair, she made her way almost to the Tibetan border, staying in inns and mission stations, observing with fascination the landscape and customs of the people, surviving the terror of a lynching mob, the hostitily of officials who would block her path and the perils of snow storms at 12,000 feet." -

Sources:

   For information about Virago, see the Wikipedia entry for Virago Press. Although Virago Press no longer exists as a separate entity, as a subsidiary Virago imprints are still available here. Some of you will appreciate that it began as Spare Rib Books. 

   Dervla Murphy is not mentioned above. I have her, Cameroon With Egbert and Transylvania and Beyond and she is a subject in my post On Barfing.  She will be 90 next month. Egbert was her horse in Africa.

The Bonus: 

Flora Tristan is Paul Gauguin's maternal grandmother. He also was a fascinating traveller and the Wiki entry for Paul Gauguin will keep you busy for the rest of the day.