Women Travelers in Egypt

Until late in the nineteenth century, few guide books acknowledged the presence of women as travelers - although women had been traveling around the world for centuries. Women's accounts of their journeys, distinct from those of male travelers, began to appear more frequently in the early nineteenth century, and Egypt was a popular destination. From Eliza Fay's description of arriving in Egypt in 1779 to Rosemary Mahoney's daring trip down the Nile in a rowboat in 2006, this lively collection of writing by over forty women travelers includes Lady Evelyn Cobbold, Isabella Bird, Winifred Blackman, Norma Lorimer, Harriet Martineau, Florence Nightingale, Amelia Edwards, and Lucie Duff Gordon.