Isabella Lucy Bird

Women were scarce enough in the West of the late nineteenth century, and a middle-aged English lady traveling alone, by horseback, was a real phenomenon. It was during the autumn and early winter of 1873 that Isabella Bird made this extended tour of the Rocky Mountain area of Colorado guided by desperado Mountain Jim. This book contains letters to her sister detailing her experiences during this travel. -- from back cover

A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains

Englishwoman in America

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 gender 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 hard scrabble lives. Illustrations.

Unbeaten Tracks in Japan

Isabella Bird

Volume 1 of Isabella Bird's account introduces the region's difficulties and fascinations for a nineteenth-century traveller.

Including a Summer in the Upper Karun Region and a Visit to the Nestorian Rayahs

Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan: Volume 1

Edward Whymper

Bird (1831-1904) recounts her rugged passage through the Himalayas by horseback and her four-month sojourn amid "the pleasantest of people." Bird's evocative accounts of Tibetan ceremonies, decorations, costumes, and music, along with her vivid descriptions of palaces, temples, and monasteries, offer rare glimpses of a vanished world. 21 black-and-white illustrations.

Among the Tibetans

Isabella Bird visited the Sandwich Islands in 1871, when she was forty. Her letters home to her sister Henrietta have a remarkable freshness and spontaneity, and reveal the transformation of a Victorian invalid into a fearless horsewoman and enthusiastic mountain-climber, who thought nothing of riding for miles soaked with rain and fording terrifyingly swollen rivers. She undertook a thirteen-hour unaccompanied trek to the summit of the extinct volcano of Mauna Kea, revelling in the security with which she was able to travel and camp out without guides or companions. At the end of her stay she was able to make the perilous ascent to the summit of Mauna Loa, the largest volcano in the world, camping for the night on the edge of the crater, at nearly 14,000 feet.

Six Months Among the Palm Groves, Coral Reefs, and Volcanoes of the Sandwich Islands

The Hawaiian Archipelago

This Elibron Classics title is a reprint of the original edition published by Fleming H. Revell Company in New York - Chicago - Toronto, 1898. This book contains color illustrations.

A Narrative of Travel, with an Account of the Recent Vicissitudes and Present Position of the Country, with a Preface by Sir Walter C. Hillier

Korea and Her Neighbours

Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan

Among Hawaii's Palm Groves, Coral Reefs, and Volcanoes

Six Months in the Sandwich Islands

Quando nel 1873 Isabella Lucy Bird intraprese il viaggio che la condusse sulle Montagne Rocciose, nessuno si sarebbe mai aspettato che una donna inglese di mezza età riuscisse nell’ardua impresa. Dotata di una curiosità prodigiosa e di un irrefrenabile desiderio di scoprire il mondo, in seguito viaggiò anche in India, Tibet, Cina, Giappone, Corea e Canada, scrivendo ben otto libri di successo sulle sue avventure. In questo volume, l’autrice dipinge un quadro intimo del “selvaggio West”, scrivendo in modo particolareggiato di flora e fauna, di coloni e avventurieri di ogni tipo, di comitati di vigilanza e di linciaggi, della gente rude ma allo stesso tempo gentile che incontrò nel suo cammino. La sua narrazione fornisce un resoconto avvincente sull’epoca che cambiò per sempre il volto della frontiera.

Tra pionieri, serpenti e banditi sulle montagne rocciose

Una lady nel West

The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither

Isabella Bird first woman to be elected to the Royal Geographical Society, 1831 - 1904. This book was published in 1856, her excursions to mid 19th century America. Shows the changes in America at the turn of the century through her eyes.

The Englishwoman in America

"Unbeaten Tracks in Japan" was written by Isabella L. Bird, one of the most famous British travelers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Her destinations included Canada, the United States (the Rocky Mountains), Hawaii, Japan, Korea, Persia, Kurdistan, China, and Morocco. She is particularly known for her intrepidness and lively writing style. Written in the form of letters to her sister, "Unbeaten Tracks in Japan" is viewed as a classic of travel writing and a valuable account of little documented areas of Japan in that era. Rather than stay in the Tokyo region or travel south to Kyoto, the mecca of Japanese civilization, she chose to travel north through the most arduously mountainous areas and eventually visit the island of Hokkaido, where lived the indigenous Ainu. "Unbeaten Tracks in Japan" provides a fascinating firsthand account of the Japanese countryside and its inhabitants, detailed descriptions of nature, and interesting observations about the customs and characteristics of both the Japanese and Ainu people. Isabella Bird deliberately chose to avoid the main routes as she traveled northward, and for the villagers she meets along the way, she is the first foreigner that they have ever laid their eyes upon. The reaction that she provokes is enough to make you laugh as Isabella does a good job of describing the scene before her eyes while travelling the "Unbeaten Tracks in Japan."

Isabella Lucy Bird

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