| ||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in A Voyager Out: The Life of Mary Kingsley for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"Katherine Frank is the ideal biographer for this challenging subject... the story of a unique woman that has to be read, absorbed, devoured, to be believed. - Elizabeth Longford" 'This absorbing biography of Mary Kingsley provides a vivid portrait of one of the most intrepid female explorers of the Victorian age.' -Sunday Telegraph 'Frank grasps the wit and insight of Kingsley's prose, and allows her to speak with great sympathy in this excellent, highly readable biography of a fascinating woman' -- Jerry Brotton, BBC History, April 2006 BRITAIN-NIGERIA ASSOCIATION 'A brilliant biography of Mary Kingsley, one of that remarkable cohort of brave Victorian lady travellers around the world.'
Product Description
Mary Kingsley began her life as a typically conventional Victorian woman. She would end up travelling to some of the most inhospitable regions of Africa to become one of the most feted travellers of the day. At the age of 31 she travelled to West Africa - her first trip to the continent she had always dreamed of visiting. She sailed on a cargo ship along the coast from Sierra Leone to Angola and then travelled inland from Guinea to Nigeria, studying African customs and beliefs. On her second journey, she ventured into remote parts of Gabon and the French Congo - the first European to do so. She encountered cannibals and crocodiles, studied the religious customs of the mysterious Fang tribe, climbed Mount Cameroon and explored the Ogowe River, trading cloth for ivory and rubber to fund her trip. She returned only once to Africa, during the Boer War, when she worked as a nurse and journalist. Tragically, she died of typhoid in 1900, only 38 years old.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.co.uk.
5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3 reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
The life of a woman who should be a legend
21 Dec 1997
Format:Hardcover
I picked up this book at a thrift shop - my usual venue for book purchases - solely due to the title. I knew nothing of Mary Kingsley prior to reading this absorbing account of her life. Her childhood and early adult life would give no clue to the extraordinary adventures she would have in Africa, culminating in her death while serving as a nurse with the British Army in South Africa. Rudyard Kipling said of her that she was "the bravest person I know" - I hope I have the quote correct. I cannot check as I gave my copy of the book to a friend who bears a striking resemblance to Miss Kingsley.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Exciting Biography of a Little-Known Intrepid Englishwoman
30 April 2007
Format:Paperback
On the surface, Victorian Englishwoman Mary Kingsley was an unlikely choice for intrepid explorer. The spinster daughter of a wealthy British nobleman who dedicated almost fifteen years of her life to nursing first her invalid mother and then her father, Mary's life was trapped by duty and honoring her parental bond. But when her parents died within months of each other, 29-year old Mary was faced with the task of shaping her own destiny. Her flamboyant, careless father George Kingsley had imbued Mary with a passion for travel and adventure through his occasional letters home to Mary and her sickly mother who suffered from the common complaints of upperclass Victorian women: inexplicable headaches, neuralgia and fainting spells that would always worsen if Mary attempted to escape the family homestead. Inspired by her father, Mary set out to explore West Africa. Dressed in a white cotton blouse and a long black woolen skirt, Mary ran the treacherous rapids of the Ogooue River; fell into a twenty-foot elephant trap studded with spikes, walked unarmed into Fang villages and unflinchingly confronted hostile native chiefs. Through it all, Mary retained a quintessential British attitude of cheerful competence in the face of danger. When a loose bag with a suspicious smell yielded human body parts in the camp of a tribe of cannibals, Mary matter-of-factly took an inventory of everything before returning everything to their containers. She spent almost a year forging through jungles, observing natives before returning to England to write about her adventures. Kingsley's two books, "Travels in West Africa" and "West African Studies" became best sellers. She became a sensation on the lecture circuit, bringing her exciting stories and her dry wit to many venues. But back in England, Mary was plagued by illness, headaches, colds and neuralgia like her mother. Her younger brother expected Mary to become his housekeeper and nurse as she had done for her mother and father. But Mary had fallen in love --- with a country that claimed her soul and filled her waking hours with yearning to return. Frank has written an excellent biography that draws the most exciting, telling parts of Kingsley's books but also fills in what Mary preferred to leave out: the wild, alluring heart of a continent.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Pursuit Of Knowledge Under Difficult Circumstances
14 Feb 2006
Format:Paperback
Rudyard Kipling said of MH Kingsley, "Being human, she must have feared some things, but one never arrived at what they were." Three species of fish and several books are only part of Kingsley's singular legacy.
Very interesting biography of this intrepid Victorian explorer, whose extraordinary exploits one suspects might have been aided by the blessedly poor socialization afforded her as an untrained, unschooled, half-Cockney and half-forgotten "poor little rich girl", who later escaped a confining existence.
The prose is deft but echoes Kingsley a little gratingly at times, rather than quoting.
Very interesting biography of this intrepid Victorian explorer, whose extraordinary exploits one suspects might have been aided by the blessedly poor socialization afforded her as an untrained, unschooled, half-Cockney and half-forgotten "poor little rich girl", who later escaped a confining existence.
The prose is deft but echoes Kingsley a little gratingly at times, rather than quoting.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
