Isabella Bird, Victorian Lady Traveller.: Living her best life?

This new biography of famous Victorian lady traveller Isabella Bird explores three prominent themes that run through her life and work. One is her physical, emotional and spiritual restlessness, which kept her on the move and made it impossible for her to put down roots, even during her short mid-life marriage. The second theme is the homesickness that troubled her through her whole adult life; she turned the usual meaning of that word on its head, because she suffered endless physical and mental illness when confined to Britain but was carefree, full of energy and healthy while away on her travels overseas, particularly 'off the beaten track' in places rarely previously visited by a European woman. The third theme, a key to understanding her adult life, was the endless tension she wrestled with between duty and desire; duty as defined by the expectations of a Victorian lady, and a member of a strongly Evangelical Christian family, and desire as manifest in her drive to live her own life, free to travel and to write. Looked at through these 3 lenses, the book explores the extent to which Isabella was able to 'live her best life'.