A reissue of The Virago Book of Women Travellers, featuring writing by Gertrude Bell, Edith Wharton, Isabella Bird, Kate O'Brien, Mary Wollstonecraft, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and many others.

'A volume in which rich and unexpected seams of precious materials await discovery' Guardian

Three hundred years of wanderlust are captured in this collection as women travel for peril or pleasure, whether to gaze into Persian gardens or imbibe the French countryside, to challenge the fierce Sahara or climb an impossible mountain.

The extraordinary women in this collection are observers of the world in which they wander; their prose rich in description, remarkable in detail. Mary McCarthy conveys the vitality of Florence while Willa Cather's essay on Lavandou foreshadows her descriptions of the French countryside in later novels. Others are more active participants in the culture they are visiting, such as Leila Philip, as she harvests rice with Japanese women. Whether it is curiosity about the world, a thirst for adventure or escape from personal tragedy, all of these women are united in that they approached their journeys with wit, intelligence, compassion and empathy for the lives of those they encountered along the way.

Also includes writing by Willa Cather, Joan Didion, Vita Sackville-West, M. F. K Fisher, Christina Dodwell and more.

This classic celebrates 300 years of female wanderlust and the theme of escape - whether the women are running away or towards something. With writing by 47 intrepid travellers including Mary Wollstonecraft on Scandinavia, Edith Wharton on Marrakech and Willa Cather on Le Lavandou, it's a meditation on the eternal allure of travel