Books with author Isabella Lucy Bird

Isabella Lucy Bird (1831-1904) was a nineteenth-century English traveller, writer, and a natural historian. Bird finally left Britain in 1872, going first to Australia, which she disliked, and then to Hawaii (known in Europe as the Sandwich Islands), her love for which prompted her second book (published three years later). While there she climbed Mauna Loa and visited Queen Emma. She then moved on to Colorado, then the newest member of the United States, where she had heard the air was excellent for the infirm. Dressed practically and riding not sidesaddle but frontwards like a man (though she threatened to sue the Times for saying she dressed like one), she covered over 800 miles in the Rocky Mountains in 1873. Her letters to her sister, first printed in the magazine Leisure Hour, comprised her fourth and perhaps most famous book, A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains. Bird's time in the Rockies was enlivened especially by her acquaintance with Jim Nugent, a textbook outlaw with one eye and an affinity for violence and poetry. "A man any woman might love but no sane woman would marry," Bird declared in a section excised from her letters prior to their publication. Nugent also seemed captivated by the independently-minded Bird, but she ultimately left the Rockies and her "dear desperado" Nugent was shot dead less than a year later. At home, Bird again found herself pursued, this time by John Bishop, an Edinburgh doctor in his thirties. Predictably ill, she went traveling again, this time to the far east: Japan, China, Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia.

This classic of Hawaiian literature offers a charming glimpse at the splendid and fascinating world of pre–American Hawaii.Isabella Lucy Bird won fame in her own time as the most remarkable woman traveler of the nineteenth century, and Six Months in the Sandwich Isles, in which she describes her sojourn in Hawaii in 1873, is one of the gems of Pacific literature. It is safe to say that no other book about Hawaii surpasses it in fascination. Much of the charm of Isabella's writing is due to her use of personal letters for conveying her her experiences and her impressions. The thirty–one letters that compose the book were written to her beloved sister Henrietta, who dutifully stayed at home in Edinburgh to take care of the household while Isabella was away on her travels.The book is an authentic record of daily life in Hawaii in the late nineteenth century. It describes a life style during the brief reign of King Lunalilo, not too may years before the sad reign of Queen Liliuokalani ended her dethronement by revolution. Isabella Bird met royalty, missionaries, cowboys, and ordinary, everyday Hawaiians. It is fortunate that she left such a vivid narrative of her Hawaiian Interlude.

This evocative and lively travelogue by Isabella L. Bird lifts the veil of the culture of Colorado and the Rocky Mountains as it was in the 1870s. We find in this classic travel book an authentic and eloquent portrayal of the beautiful peaks and breathtaking landscapes of rural North America. Braving the craggy landscape on horseback and on foot, the author manages to conquer some of the area's most awe-inspiring ranges, while also observing life in several settlements and towns around the state of Colorado. The sheer toughness of the author shines through each of her letters. Her descriptions do not flinch from accuracy, as she notes the sub-zero temperatures, fierce drafts of wind, and other perils of the untamed landscape. Most notably of all however is Isabella Bird's steely determination and doggedness in confronting, and surmounting, the Rocky Mountains. Only a few decades prior to Isabella L. Bird's arrival in the Rockies, it was an uncharted wilderness, settled only by the Native American populations and explored only by fur trappers. Even in the 1870s, nearly all of the locale remained untouched; nature, in all its glory, offered travelers a myriad of beautiful sights. For her part, the author was drawn to the locale due to her health; the brisk mountain airs were said to invigorate the lungs and spirit. Throughout her life, the author wrote many accounts of her travels. Her descriptions are frank yet poetic, grand yet down-to-Earth - despite the hardships, Bird rarely lapsed into complaining. Instead we receive an impression not merely of awe-inspiring and exotic locales, but of the fierce and capable personality of the journeys' narrator.

Dressed practically and riding not sidesaddle but frontwards like a man (though she threatened to sue the Times for saying she dressed like one), she covered over 800 miles in the Rocky Mountains in 1873. Her letters to her sister, first printed in the magazine Leisure Hour, comprised her fourth and perhaps most famous book, A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains. Bird's time in the Rockies was enlivened especially by her acquaintance with Jim Nugent, "Rocky Mountain Jim", a textbook outlaw with one eye and an affinity for violence and poetry. "A man any woman might love but no sane woman would marry," Bird declared in a section excised from her letters before their publication. Nugent also seemed captivated by the independent-minded Bird, but she ultimately left the Rockies and her "dear desperado." Nugent was shot dead less than a year later. Other notable books by Isabella Bird include Unbeaten Tracks in Japan, Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan, Among the Tibetans, and The Englishwoman in America.

First published serially and then into a book in 1879, “A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains” is one of the many accounts of Isabella L. Bird’s amazing travels and adventures. Born in Yorkshire, England in 1831, Bird was never formally educated and was often sickly as a child, but she was an avid reader and loved the outdoors. In 1854, at the age of twenty-two, she left a comfortable life in England for her first trip abroad to America. She fell in love with discovering new places and defied tradition while undertaking grand adventures as an unmarried woman. Bird went onto travel to Australia and Hawaii, while publishing several accounts of her experiences, before finding her way to Colorado. “A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains”, her fourth publication and her most famous, contains the account of six months of her travels in 1873 through the rugged terrain of the Colorado Rockies. The book is based upon her colorful letters sent back home to her sister and the account relates the many hardships of the great western frontier, the unique characters she meets, and the incredible natural world she found in the newly settled western territories. This edition includes a biographical afterword.

Born in 1831, Isabella, daughter of a clergyman, set off alone to the Antipodes in 1872 'in search of health' and found she had embarked on a life of adventurous travel. In 1873, wearing Hawaiian riding dress, she rode on her spirited horse Birdie through the American 'Wild West', a terrain only recently opened to pioneer settlement. Here she met Rocky Mountain Jim, her 'dear (one-eyed) desperado', fond of poetry and whisky - 'a man any women might love, but no sane woman would marry'. He helped her climb the 'American Matterhorn' and round up cattle on horseback.The wonderful letters which make up this volume were first published in 1879 and were enormously popular in Isabella Bird's lifetime. They tell of magnificent unspoilt landscapes and abundant wildlife, of small remote townships, of her encounters with rattlesnakes, wolves, pumas and grizzly bears and her reactions to the volatile passions of the miners and pioneer settlers.

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