Women experience and portray travel differently: Gender matters - irreducibly and complexly.
Building on recent scholarship in women's travel writing these provocative essays not only
affirm the impact of gender but also cast women's journeys against coordinates such as race
class culture religion economics politics and history. The book's scope is unique: Women
travelers extend in time from Victorian memsahibs to contemporary «road girls» and topics
range from Anna Leonowens's slanted portrayal of Siam - later popularized in the movie The
King and I to current feminist «descripting» of the male-road-buddy genre. The extensive array
of writers examined includes Nancy Prince Frances Trollope Cameron Tuttle Lady Mary Montagu
Catherine Oddie Kate Karko Frances Calderón de la Barca Rosamond Lawrence Zilpha Elaw
Alexandra David-Néel Amelia Edwards Erica Lopez Paule Marshall Bharati Mukherjee and
Marilynne Robinson.
