Isabella L. Bird

This classic travel book details Isabella Bird's 1878 trip, where she set out alone to explore the interior of Japan - a rarity not only because of Bird's sex but because the country was virtually unknown to Westerners. The Japan she describes is not the sentimental world of Madame Butterfly but a vibrant land of real people with a complex culture and hardscrabble lives.

Born in 1831, Isabella, daughter of a clergyman, set off alone to the Antipodes in 1872 'in search of health' and found she had embarked on a life of adventurous travel. In 1873, wearing Hawaiian riding dress, she rode on her spirited horse Birdie through the American 'Wild West', a terrain only recently opened to pioneer settlement. Here she met Rocky Mountain Jim, her 'dear (one-eyed) desperado', fond of poetry and whisky - 'a man any women might love, but no sane woman would marry'. He helped her climb the 'American Matterhorn' and round up cattle on horseback. The wonderful letters which make up this volume were first published in 1879 and were enormously popular in Isabella Bird's lifetime. They tell of magnificent unspoilt landscapes and abundant wildlife, of small remote townships, of her encounters with rattlesnakes, wolves, pumas and grizzly bears and her reactions to the volatile passions of the miners and pioneer settlers.

In 1872, Isabella Bird, daughter of a clergyman, set off alone to the Antipodes 'in search of health' and found she had embarked on a life of adventurous travel. In 1873, wearing Hawaiian riding dress, she rode her horse through the American Wild West, a terrain only newly opened to pioneer settlement. The letters that make up this volume were first published in 1879. They tell of magnificent, unspoiled landscapes and abundant wildlife, of encounters with rattlesnakes, wolves, pumas and grizzly bears, and her reactions to the volatile passions of the miners and pioneer settlers. A classic account of a truly astounding journey.

Isabella Bird spent much of 1890 roaming the exotic lands of Persia and Kurdistan, traversing the coast and secluded towns and villages, keeping this vivid, descriptive, diary of local life and culture. While much of Europe had industrialized over the century prior, the Middle East of the late 19th century had not undergone such a transformation. Isabella Bird traversed Persia - modern-day Iran - and saw sights little-changed over the centuries. She traversed the coastline on ferries, and joined caravans to cross the land, recounting the appearance and customs of the locals, their marketplaces, cuisine, and worship. For the modern reader, her descriptions offer a window into a now-departed and romantic era of Eastern majesty. An experienced travel writer, Isabella Bird spares little detail - the climate, the mannerisms of the population, the pulse of daily living in the towns and villages. Her narrations bring Persia to life; the beauty of places such as Kermanshah counterpointed by down-to-earth, frank discussions of remaining cool in an arid climate characterized by extreme temperatures, and sampling foods unusual to the Western palette. Accompanying the text are a total of fifteen illustrations of the local peoples, architecture and scenes of everyday life.