1st Edition
British Women Travellers Empire and Beyond, 1770-1870
This book studies the exclusive refractive perspectives of British women who took up the twin challenges of travel and writing when Britain was establishing itself as the greatest empire on earth. Contributors explore the ways in which travel writing has defined women’s engagement with Empire and British identity, and was inextricably linked with the issue of identity formation. With a capacious geographical canvas, this volume examines the multifaceted relations and negotiations of British women travellers in a range of different imperial contexts across continents from America, Africa, Europe to Australia.
Introduction
Sutapa Dutta
Part I: On the Continent, Framing "Britishness"
1. Colonising the French: Elizabeth Inchbald’s Cultural Appropriation
Ben P. Robertson
2. Views of an "Overthrown" Kingdom: Britishness and Otherness in The Spanish Journal of Elizabeth Holland
Antonio Calvo Maturana
3. Roman Monuments, Ruins and Remains: British Women Travellers’ Perception of Historical Heritage in the Early 19th Century
Barbara Tetti
4. On Terrains of the Other Empire: Mary Holderness’ Account of Her Residence in Early 19th-Century Crimea
Nataliia Voloshkova
Part II: In the Colonies, Defining "Non-British"
5. The Politics of Feasting: Janet Schaw’s Sensory Experience of the West Indies
Georgina Elisabeth Munn
6. Creating a "More Popular Work": The Lasting Influence of Maria Graham’s Journal of a Residence in India (1812)
Lacy Marschalk
7. The Memsahibs’ Gaze: Representation of the Zenana in India
Sutapa Dutta
8. Gossip, Mosquitos, and "Well-Made" Men: Isabella Fane’s Vision of Colonial India
Shannon Derby
9. "Servant of the Cross": Identity, Travel and Colonial Culture in the Letters of Mary Moffat in South Africa
Michelle Adler
10. An "Honorary Man" in the Holy Land?: Mary Eliza Rogers, Gender, and British Protestant Imperialism
Sarah Irving
Part III: In the Settler Colonies, Furthering the "Other" British
11. "English, Yet Essentially Un-English": Female Constructions of Imperial Belonging in Melbourne, 1850–1870
Sophie Cooper
12. In Search of the Romantic Aesthetic: British Women Travellers in 19th-Century America
Justyna Fruzińska
13. Carriage and Canoe: The Material Vessels of Anna Brownell Jameson’s Voyage in Upper Canada
Sophie Anne Edwards
Biography
Sutapa Dutta is a Fellow at IIAS, Shimla, and teaches in the Department of English, Gargi College, University of Delhi.
