A wider range : travel writing by women in Victorian England /

Victorian women travel writers were an intrepid group, and a comprehensive study of their exploits is certainly welcome. This author, however, also develops an ancillary modern cultural theme: that women used their travel writing to prepare themselves for further professional development and writing in other areas. It is a fresh approach and one that suggests many new interpretations of travel writing. Frawley succeeds in demonstrating the ways in which women's minds were opened during and after their travel. She also analyzes the work not only of the well-known names, but also the myriad of less well-known women who traveled to the four corners of the earth. The book is well written, meticulously researched, rich with evocative material, and valuable for its definitive bibliography. Academic and general audiences. R. T. Van Arsdel; emerita, University of Puget Sound

Frawley presents a scholarly study of what it meant for Victorian women to travel outside of England and to publish their findings upon their return. The introduction of steam locomotion and railways in the 19th century-and the work of travel entrepreneur Thomas Cook-allowed both men and women of the English middle and upper classes-Mary Shelley, Elizabeth Eastlake, Mary Kingsley, Harriet Martineau, and Frances Trollope, among them-to explore cultures other than their own. The author argues, however, that many of the women who chose travel writing over the more acceptable and lucrative genre of popular fiction did so to gain credibility and move into the "high prestige male speciality" genres of nonfiction. Organized by geographic region, this book is a solid study, well written and reasonably free of academic jargon, that will be of interest to scholars.-Caroline Mitchell, Washington, D.C. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.