Worlds of Knowledge in Women’s Travel Writing

This book rediscovers the works of a wide range of female travel writers from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. A stowaway on a voyage circumnavigating the globe; a nineteenth-century visitor to schools in Japan; an Indian activist undertaking a pilgrimage to Iraq, these are some of the women whose experiences come to life in this volume. It explores travel writing as a genre for communicating information about other cultures and for testing assumptions about the nature and extent of women’s expertise.

This book challenges the frequent focus in travel studies on English-language texts by exploring works in French and Urdu as well as English and focusing on journeys to France, Spain, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, India, Ethiopia, Japan, Australia, and the Falkland Islands. Written by experts in a wide range of fields, this interdisciplinary volume sheds new light on the range, innovation, and erudition of travel narratives by women.