Mary Morris: The Illustrated Virago Book of Women Travellers

By MARGIE THOMSON

So I ran away," begins Maud Parrish of her 17-year-old self, at the beginning of the excerpt taken from her only book, Nine Pounds of Luggage.

"I hurried more than if lions had chased me. Without telling him. Without telling my mother or father. There wasn't any liberty in San Francisco for ordinary women. But I found some. No jobs for girls in offices like there are now. You got married, were an old maid, or went to hell. Take your pick."

It was around 1895 and she was leaving her husband ("There was nothing the matter with him for somebody else," she adds rather scornfully) and embarking on a life of madcap adventure.

"Wanderlust can be the most glorious thing in the world sometimes," she writes - a sentiment that would be resoundingly echoed by every one of the 46 intrepid travellers whose writings are reproduced here.

Parrish travelled to Alaska, to Canada and down the Yukon River, playing her banjo in dance halls, dancing with men for money. From there, she never truly went home.

She ran a gambling house in Peking and went around the world 16 times before she died at 98.

The travelogues that fill the pages of this attractive, literary coffee-table book span three centuries. They begin with Lady Mary Wortley Mantagu (1689-1762), who created a scandal in 1716 when she followed her ambassador husband to Constantinople and had the perspicacity to be open-minded about the customs and practices she found there, even adopting Turkish dress, and include Leila Philip (1962-), who in the 1980s spent two years learning pottery in Japan, and joined the locals harvesting rice.

They are a mix of outsider description, self-conscious anthropological observation and recountings from those who have become bound up in cultures not their own, such as Alexandra David-Neel (1868-1969), who became enchanted with Tibetan Buddhism after meeting the Dalai Llama in 1911, and in 1923 became the first Western woman to pass through the gates of Lhasa. She studied Buddhism and perfected the ancient practice of raising her body temperature through meditation, something she uses to lifesaving effect in the story here.

The stories traverse the world, and we're lucky to have such accounts because many of these places are gone, changed irrevocably by technology, exploding populations or their strangeness muted by overexposure and the massive tourism culture of recent decades.

Many of these women, one suspects, were eccentrics. They must have been, to have flouted the conventions against women travelling alone, and to have dared to visit places not considered "safe". They went anyway and their gutsiness and practicality pervades their writing.

My favourite is Canadian artist Emily Carr who wrote one book, a collection of anecdotes titled Klee Wyck (or Laughing One), of which an excerpt is published here.

What would we have thought of Carr had we spotted her in the street, pushing her pram of dogs, cats and a monkey? She was a solitary eccentric - but her life achievements remind us not to judge such characters harshly.

Here, she tells of travelling to Kitwancool to see and paint the totem poles that were being removed there from around the British Columbian coastal region. Her description of her mosquito-infested, hungry ordeal, her stay with the Indians who were suspicious of her, and her sensibility, sensitivity and open-mindedness - not to mention her dry humour and excellently paced storytelling - all add up to a sharp, memorable story.

My only criticism of this anthology is that, while beautifully illustrated, the photos are not captioned or sourced - a great frustration. Otherwise, this is a smorgasbord of tastes that leaves you wanting to know more about these determined, adventurous women.

The large format ensures that despite the subject matter, this book can be read only while lounging around.

* Virago, $39.95