A Victorian Traveler in the Middle East

Juxtaposing the albums of Lady Brassey, an overlooked figure among Victorian women travelers, with Brassey's travel books, Nancy Micklewright takes advantage of a unique opportunity to examine the role of photography in the 1870s and 1880s in constructing ideas about place and empire. The book includes an overview of Lady Brassey's life and projects, as well as an examination of issues relevant to subsequent discussions of the travel literature, the photographs, and the albums in which the photographs are assembled. It offers a detailed and nuanced understanding of how photographic and literary constructions were related to individual experience and identity within a larger British identity. All in all, Micklewright's study makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the complex and unstable social, political and imperialist discourses in the nineteenth century.