Spinsters abroad : Victorian lady explorers
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Spinsters abroad : Victorian lady explorers
(A Gollancz paperback)
Victor Gollancz, 1991
Available at 1 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
"First published in Great Britain 1989 by Basil Blackwell" -- t.p. verso
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
What spurred so many Victorian women to leave behind the security and comfort of their middle-class homes to undertake perilous journeys of thousands of miles, tramping through rainforests, caravanning across deserts and scaling mountain ranges? How were they able to travel so freely in exotic lands, when in their own countries such independence was denied them? This book draws on the diaries, letters and other writings of more than 50 such women to describe their experiences and aspirations. In addressing the question of whether women like Mary Kingsley and Isabella Bird were the intrepid bluestockings of popular history, or in fact early feminists, Dea Birkett concludes that they were neither; that, dissatisfied with the cramped lives prescribed for them in Victorian society, they sought new horizons abroad, discovering in these distant places a degree of freedom and respect unimaginable to them as spinsters at home. She explores the conflict in these women between duty and desire - the wish to observe and transgress the bounds of acceptable behaviour. Dea Birkett also wrote "Jella: A Woman At Sea".
by "Nielsen BookData"