Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century

William Henry Davenport AdamsProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.4
Word count
653K words
Chapters
66

Tags

English Originals Women's Biography TravelogueAdventure JourneyBrave AdventureGroup BiographyNineteenth Century TravelExotic CultureCultural ObservationWomen PioneersWomen TravelersFemale Perspective

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century by W. H. Davenport AdamsAuthor: Adams, W. H. Davenport (William Henry Davenport), 1828-1891,Language: English, Class: CT: History: Biography, Release Date: Mar 3, 2010

Editor's review

This book focuses on the experiences of a group of women travellers in the nineteenth century, presenting in biographical form their observations and deeds as they left familiar surroundings and journeyed to distant lands. The author, W. H. Davenport Adams, was a nineteenth-century English writer whose prose bears the clear imprint of its era, combining documentary value with narrative interest. For today's readers it is both a window onto the history of nineteenth-century women's travel and gender attitudes, and a view of the perspectives and limitations with which Europeans of the time observed the world. It should be read with a critical historical awareness: the descriptions of foreign lands reflect the gaze of a particular age and should not be taken as objective geography. It suits readers interested in travel literature, women's history and nineteenth-century social culture as thematic reading, and can also serve as reference material for writing and research.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Start with the table of contents to see who is covered, then choose chapters of interest for close reading.
  2. Note the book's descriptions of foreign lands and women as you read, and consider them against the background of the era.
  3. Read alongside other nineteenth-century travel texts to compare differences in perspective.
  4. The English original is best read slowly; with long sentences, first identify the main clause, then work out the details.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66

FAQ

Is this book a novel or a biographical source? It is a biographical work of nonfiction, narrating the experiences of several nineteenth-century women travellers in the evaluative voice of the author's era. Readers may use it as reference material on travel history and women's history, but should be mindful of its period prejudices and not treat it as wholly objective historical evidence.
What background knowledge is needed to read this book? A basic familiarity with nineteenth-century European history will make the reading smoother, such as the transport conditions, colonial expansion and gender attitudes of the time. If background knowledge is limited, readers can begin with the introduction or a related overview before moving to the individual chapters, filling in context as they go without hindering overall understanding.
Are the views in this book still applicable today? Many descriptions carry the perspectives and prejudices of nineteenth-century Europeans and should be viewed critically today. Its value lies in showing the possibilities and limits of women's travel in that era and how people of the time saw the world, rather than in offering objective conclusions in the modern sense.
Is it suitable as material for academic research? It can serve as supplementary historical material and an object of textual analysis, especially for studying travel writing, women's history and period discourse. When citing it, however, one should note the author's standpoint and the limitations of the era, and preferably use it alongside other primary sources and modern scholarship rather than drawing conclusions from a single text.

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About the author

William Henry Davenport Adams Author · English · 1828–1891

William Henry Davenport Adams (1828–1891) was a British writer and journalist born in London. After teaching and editing newspapers, he turned to full-time writing and produced nearly 140 works across popular science, juvenile literature, historical biography and reference books, while also translating French authors such as Figuier and Michelet into English. The library holds eight of his works, showing a wide range of subjects: popular studies of belief and legend such as Witch, Warlock, and Magician and Curiosities of Superstition; travel biographies including Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century and Some Heroes of Travel; a popular account of practical installations in Lighthouses and Lightships; and the literary essay collection By-ways in Book-land. His clear, engaging style brought knowledge to ordinary readers through lively stories. He died at Wimbledon in 1891.