Isabella L. Bird

This early work is Isabella Lucy Bird 1875 travelogue, "The Hawaiian Archipelago". Having travelled to the area for health reasons, Bird found herself spending almost seven months traversing the islands, exploring mountains, visiting active volcanoes, and living amongst the natives. An interesting and insightful account, this volume is highly recommended for fans of historical travel writings, and would make for a fantastic addition to any collection. Isabella Lucy Bird (1831-1904) was an English explorer, author, and naturalist. Many classic books such as this are becoming increasingly rare and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author.

In 1880, Isabella Bird visited the Malay Peninsula-romantically dubbed 'The Golden Chersonese'-and was still able to refer to it as an almost unknown land. The world's most famous female travel writer of the nineteenth century set sail from Japan and called at Hong Kong, Canton and Saigon before reaching Singapore. Bearing letters of introduction to the elite of Malacca and Penang, Bird was able to observe life on the west coast of the peninsula before steaming upriver through mangrove swamps to explore the interior of the land. From courtroom to elephant back, from the grandeur of Malacca's Stadthuys to the jungle calm of a picturesque Malay village on stilts, this indefatigable Victorian explorer offers invaluable descriptions and delightful hand-drawn sketches of life in late nineteenth-century Singapore and the Malay Peninsula.

After the success of The Englishwoman in America (also reissued in this series), the indefatigable Isabella Bird (1831–1904) continued her travels – first to Scotland, then to Australia and Hawaii – before returning to the United States and taking up residence in what was then the newest state, Colorado. Her adventures here – recorded as letters to her sister which she artlessly tells the reader were never intended for publication – included riding alone across the prairie, trying to help a family dying of cholera in the face of indifference from the local inhabitants, a sight of the invalids who were coming to Denver in huge numbers to be cured by the mountain air, and an encounter (if it was nothing more) with that western archetype, the one-eyed, romantic, courteous, poetry-declaiming outlaw, who by the following year was 'in a dishonoured grave, with a rifle bullet in his brain'.

In 1856, Isabella Bird published The Englishwoman in America, the first of what would be many books of her travels around the world. Adopting a tone of aloof bemusement, she describes in detail the hardships and annoyances of her travels by sea from England to Halifax, and on the road to Boston, Cincinnati, and Chicago. The book's 20 chapters are full of keenly observed and entertainingly told stories of pickpockets and luggage thieves, greasy hotels, and Americans who are very polite, but have the unfortunate habit of spitting on the floor. Bird admits to sharing the regrettably prejudiced view the English have of America, but nevertheless finds much to like and admire in this new country bustling with ethnically diverse immigrants full of energy and bravado. The Englishwoman in America is a wonderful travelogue that offers a lively and personal glimpse into mid-nineteenth-century America.

Isabella Bird was one of the greatest travelers and travel writers of all time, and this is her last major book, a sympathetic look at inland China and beyond into Tibet at the end of the 19th century. In describing the journey, Isabella provides a rich mix of observations and describes two occasions when she is almost killed by anti-foreign mobs. It many ways, Isabella created the model for travel writing today, and this one of her greatest works.