ISBN: Ostalo
Godina izdanja: 1991.
Jezik: Engleski
Autor: Strani

Jane Robins WAYWARD WOMEN
A Guide to Women Travellers

Oxfors University Press, 1991.
344 pages.

Očuvana.
Listovi požuteli usled kvaliteta štamparske hartije.


Handy to have around if you’re interested in the history of travel, this is very much a reference book rather than a book giving the detailed history of women travellers. It lists their books and gives a short potted biography of their achievements, rather than the nitty-gritty of what they got up to. It’s most useful in its lists of publications by women travellers. For instance: `A Fool on Wheels: Tangier to Baghdad by Land Rover` (1955), by Barbara Toy, sounds interesting, as do many others, and it’s really quite astounding how many women have gone off on their travels all over the world and written about it afterwards. Jane Robinson says: “Sometimes I see this collection of travel writers as a ‘monstrous regiment of women,’ a tribe of eccentrics forging their way further and further away from the familiar.”

The prime example might be said to be Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762). She was certainly one of the first of the grand lady travellers and one of the best at describing what she saw. Encouraged by her friend and cousin, Henry Fielding, she was one of the first to travel out of sheer curiosity. She seems to have thoroughly enjoyed herself in Turkey, where her husband was Ambassador and she was instrumental in introducing the practice of inoculation to prevent smallpox. This was 70 years before Jenner’s popularisation of the practice. She was just about to settle into a dignified old age when he she met the Italian poet and dandy Francesco Algarotti and fell utterly in love with him, but he seemed keen to avoid their trysts and the affair ended rather embarrassingly. She left for Geneva and then Avignon, and eventually she settled down in a converted mill. She died aged 73. Her books are still in print.

The potted biographies of women such as Jane Goodall (the chimpanzee expert) are very interesting, but you may well find yourself with a large book-list after looking through the contents of this fascinating taster about women who did not stay at home.