Investigation Or Travels In The Boudoir

This book by Caroline A. Halsted is a fictionalized account of a woman's travels through Europe in the 19th century. It is written in a unique style, with the protagonist's thoughts and experiences intermingling with descriptions of the various locales visited. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in women's travel writing or 19th century literature. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

"The chief design of the following little work is to prove to young persons of active imaginations, that happiness and knowledge depend not, as such are too frequently disposed to imagine, on a foreign tour; but that much valuable information may be obtained in their own county,--amusement in their own homes--nay, pleasant variety and real entertainment, even in those very apartments where, for want of occupation, many an intelligent mind may have idly lounged for hours"--P. [vii]

Both travel and translation involve a type of journey, one with literal and metaphorical dimensions. Judith Johnston brings together these two richly resonant modes of getting from here to there as she explores their impact on culture with respect to the work of Victorian women. Using the metaphor of the published journey, whether it involves actual travel or translation, Johnston focusses particularly on the relationships of various British women with continental Europe. At the same time, she sheds light on the possibility of appropriation and British imperial enhancement that such contact produces. Johnston's book is in part devoted to case studies of women such as Sarah Austin, Mary Busk, Anna Jameson, Charlotte Guest, Jane Sinnett and Mary Howitt who are representative of women travellers, translators and journalists during a period when women became increasingly robust participants in the publishing industry. Whether they wrote about their own travels or translated the foreign language texts of other writers, Johnston shows, women were establishing themselves as actors in the broad business of culture. In widening our understanding of the ways in which gender and modernity functioned in the early decades of the Victorian age, Johnston's book makes a strong case for a greater appreciation of the contributions nineteenth-century women made to what is termed the knowledge empire.