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This life of Victorian solo traveller Isabella Bird reveals a remarkable and determined woman, who defied contemporary expectations.
Isabella Bird was a woman of remarkable gifts. In 1872, at the age of forty, this rather earnest daughter of a country parson abandoned the rectory nest and began her pioneering journeys to some of the most inhospitable corners of the world. Undismayed by discomfort or danger she was to spend almost thirty years travelling - to the Rocky Mountains, the Sandwich Isles, to Japan, Malaya, Kashmir and Tibet, to Persia, Korea and China - where an indomitable spirit, an unassuming cordiality and, above all, a limitless capacity for being interested won her universal welcome. Her accounts of her experiences became best-selling books and established for Isabella Bird a reputation as one of the great travel writers of her day. 'Miss Barr has her measure. She and Miss Bird are well suited. The style of both is fresh, energetic, visual, making an enchanting book.' Evening Standard 'Rich and riotous as her intrepid heroine moves at the speed of a silent movie through landscapes lusher than any technicolour.' Times Literary Supplement 'A rare book.' Sunday Telegraph
This dashing picture book biography takes us around the world with a daring Victorian female explorer and author. Exploring was easier said than done for a young woman in nineteenth-century England. But somehow Isabella persisted, and with each journey, she breathed in new ways to see and describe everything around her. Question by question, word by word, Isabella bloomed. First, out in the English countryside. Then, off to America and Canada. And eventually, around the world, to Africa, Asia, Australia, and more. Always more—more places, more questions, more words—and all those experiences became books, in which she described the land she traveled, the people she met, and the dangers she experienced. And finally, Isabella returned home to England, where she became the first female member of the Royal Geographic Society and was presented to the Queen. But to wild-vine Isabella, the world was home. Back matter features an author's note, bibliography, and timeline.
Isabella Lucy Bird married name Bishop (1831 - 1904) was a nineteenth-century English explorer, writer, photographer and naturalist. With Fanny Jane Butler she founded the John Bishop Memorial hospital in Srinagar. She was the first woman to be elected Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society Bird was born on 15 October 1831 at Boroughbridge Hall, Yorkshire, the home of her maternal grandmother. Her parents were the Reverend Edward Bird and his second wife Dora Lawson.[1] Isabella moved several times during her childhood. Boroughbridge was her father's first curacy after taking orders in 1830, and it was here he met Dora.
Women were scarce enough in the West of the late nineteenth century, and a middle-aged English lady traveling alone, by horseback, was a real phenomenon. It was during the autumn and early winter of 1873 that Isabella Bird made this extended tour of the Rocky Mountain area of Colorado guided by desperado Mountain Jim. This book contains letters to her sister detailing her experiences during this travel. -- from back cover