Audiobook · read by volunteers
Englishwoman in America
Isabella L. Bird (1831–1904)
Read by Sibella Denton · 20 chapters · 12 h 11
About the book
In 1854, Isabella Bird, a young Englishwoman, crossed the Atlantic and spent several months in Canada and the United States. She travelled alone, by steamer, rail, coach and carriage, from Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island to Chicago and Cincinnati. Her letters describe cities and villages, hotels and boarding houses, pickpockets, politicians and preachers. She is observant, often amusing, and she does not hesitate to give her opinions on American manners, on slavery, on religion and on the strange habits of fellow travellers. Pickpockets, cholera, crowded omnibuses and rat-infested hotels fail to deter her. This account of an early journey by an extraordinary traveller captures the sights, sounds and attitudes of the 1850s, and it is full of sharp and entertaining detail. Her sharp, humorous letters remain a pleasure to hear.
Introduction
Isabella Bird, born in 1831 and died in 1904, became one of the best-known travellers of the Victorian era. She began travelling in her twenties to improve her health, and her first journey was to North America. The Englishwoman in America, published in 1856, was her first book, and it established her as a lively and perceptive writer. She later travelled to Hawaii, the Rocky Mountains, Japan, Korea, China and many other places.
In this book she describes her observations as a young woman travelling alone, at a time when this was uncommon. She comments on the cities she visited, on the people she met, and on the quality of the roads and hotels. She does not always approve of what she sees, and her remarks about social customs, politics and religion reflect her own background. Yet she writes with curiosity and good humour, and her descriptions of nature and of the long journeys across the continent are vivid.
The LibriVox recording has twenty chapters and runs for more than twelve hours. It is read by a single volunteer. It is a good choice for lovers of travel writing and social history, and for those who would like to follow Bird from her earliest journeys. For readers of her later, more famous adventures, it gives a chance to see how it all began.
Bird has a quick eye for comic details, such as the bustle of a railway station or the oddities of a dining table, and she is equally alert to the beauty of the lakes and forests she crosses. The book reads as a long conversation with a lively companion, and it makes a good complement to her later travels.
Public domain
Isabella L. Bird died in 1904: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text