Maiden Voyages: Writings of Women Travelers

This is a collection of women's travel writings, including work by Joan Didion, Edith Wharton, Mildred Cable, Willa Cather, Isak Dinesen, and others. In wry, lyrical, and sometimes wistful voices, they write of disguising themselves as men for safety, of longing for family left behind or falling in love with people met along the way, and of places as diverse as icy Himalayan passes and dusty American pioneer towns, the darkly wooded Siberian landscape and the lavender-covered hills of Provence. Yet even as their voices, experiences, and paths vary, they share with one another--and with us as readers--reflections upon their gender as it is illuminated by unfamiliar surroundings. Edited and with an Introduction by Mary Morris, in collaboration with Larry O'Connor.Excerpts from: Embassy to Constantinople / Lady Mary Wortley Montagu --Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark / Mary Wollstonecraft --Peregrinations of a pariah / Flora Tristan --Domestic manners of the Americans / Frances Trollope --Life in prairie land / Eliza Farnham --Untrodden peaks and unfrequented valleys: a midsummer's ramble in the Dolomites / Amelia Edwards --Through Algeria / Mabel Sharman Crawford --Journal of a lady's travels 'round the world / Mrs. F.D. Bridges --Travels in West Africa / Mary Kingsley --A lady's life in the Rocky Mountains / Isabella Bird --The passionate nomad / Isabelle Eberhardt --Station life in New Zealand / Lady Mary Anne Barker --A girl's ride in Iceland / Ethel B. Tweedie --English governess at the Siamese court / Anna Leonowens --Love among the butterflies / Margaret Fountaine. Desert and the sown / Gertrude Bell --On sledge and horseback to outcast Siberian lepers / Kate Marsden --In Morocco / Edith Wharton --Willa Cather in Europe / W. Cather --Passenger to Teheran / Vita Sackville West --My journey to Lhasa / Alexandra David-Neel --Out of Africa / Isak Dinesen --Sister of the road / Box-car Bertha --Farewell Spain / Kate O'Brien --Nine pounds of luggage / Maud Parrish --Speak to the earth: Wanderings and reflections among elephants and mountains / Vivienne de Watteville --Winter in Arabia / Freya Stark --Black lamb and grey falcon / Rebecca West --Klee Wyck / Emily Carr --Gobi desert / Mildred Cable --West with the night / Beryl Markham --The cruel way / Ella Millart --The fabled shore / Rose Macaulay --Stones of Florence / Mary McCarthy --A way of seeing / Margaret Meade. Times and places / Emily Hahn --Long ago in France / M.F.K. Foster --Tamrart: thirteen days in the Sahara / Eleanor Clark --Muddling through in Madagascar / Dervla Murphy --Turkish reflections / Mary Lee Settle --White album / Joan Didion --Through Persia in disguise / Sarah Hobson --Wall-to-wall / Mary Morris --Travels with fortune: an African adventure / Christina Dodwell --Russian journal / Andrea Lee --Demon lover / Robin Morgan --Season of stones / Helen Winternitz --Noman's land / Gwendolyn MacEwen --Teaching a stone to talk / Annie Dillard --Road through Miyama / Leila Philip