Isabella Bird

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Standard Name: Bird, Isabella
Birth Name: Isabella Lucy Bird
Pseudonym: I. L. B.
Married Name: Isabella Lucy Bishop
Married Name: Isabella Lucy Bishop-Bird
Used Form: Isabella Bird Bishop
Used Form: Isabella Bishop-Bird
Used Form: Isabella L. Bird
Used Form: Mrs Bishop
Used Form: Mrs J. F. Bishop
Used Form: The Author of The Englishwoman in America
IB , well-known Victorian lady traveller, is remembered primarily for her adventures in Canada, America, the Near East, and Asia. During her many travels she kept diaries and wrote letters to her sister Henrietta, and these formed the basis for her highly popular travel books.
Brothers, Barbara, and Julia Gergits, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 166. Gale Research, 1996.
166: 31
She also wrote for periodicals on a wide range of matters: on religious issues, on social topics and contemporary politics, such as the land troubles in Ireland and Scotland.
Print of Isabella Bird, full face, looking ahead with a closed expression, wearing a scarf and hat over a coat.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Friends, Associates Sarah Tytler
ST 's career as a writer introduced her to many leading literary figures (especially those of Scots origin) whom she entertainingly describes in Three Generations.
Tytler, Sarah. Three Generations. J. Murray, 1911.
261-344
She became an especially good friend of Dinah Mulock Craik
Intertextuality and Influence Caryl Churchill
The first act makes brilliant use of historical anachronism, bringing together six women—some fictional, some actual—from different historical periods: nineteenth-century Scottish traveller Isabella Bird ; Lady Nijo , a thirteenth-century Japanese courtesan turned nun; the...
Intertextuality and Influence E. M. Hull
She purportedly used the pseudonym E. M. Hullfor fear of disgracing her family.
Melman, Billie. Women and the Popular Imagination in the Twenties. Macmillan, 1988.
90
She wrote her first novel for personal distraction
qtd. in
Beauman, Nicola. A Very Great Profession: The Woman’s Novel 1914-39. Virago, 1983.
189
while her husband was away during the First World War; she...
Intertextuality and Influence Gwen Moffat
This book has more pure visual description than a reader might expect: of animals, birds, wild flowers, skies, and sheer gritty, muddy, or rocky geology. Details are memorable. After dusty miles driving GMput my...
Literary responses Catherine Hubback
She is discussed as one of a group of British women who travelled or settled in the USA (along with Fanny Kemble , Frances Trollope , Harriet Martineau , Isabella Bird , and the diarist...
politics May Crommelin
MC 's Fellowship of the Royal Geographical Society is mentioned without comment by various sources,
“May Crommelin (Maria Henriette de la Cherois-Crommelin) (1849 - 1930)”. Crommelin Family, The Netherlands.
but it was in fact highly controversial. The Society had included a handful of female Fellows since 1884, but purely...
Publishing Dervla Murphy
Thinking of her father's years of hoping and struggling to publish his novels, DM said she felt her life had been chosen as the medium through which all the strivings of generations of scribbling Murphys...
Publishing Dervla Murphy
Though she prefers the space available in writing a book, DM has contributed to periodicals throughout her career. While her daughter was young, she wrote a regular column for the Irish Times. She continues...
Textual Features Harriet Beecher Stowe
In common with other travel books of the time, such as those of Isabella Bird , this was fabricated of fictionalized domestic letters, many addressed to an Aunt E. Using the voice and authority of...
Textual Production Celia Fiennes
The title seems to place the work in a tradition of intrepid Englishwoman abroad, including Emma Roberts , Matilda Betham-Edwards , Isabella Bird , Mabel Sharman Crawford , and others. Beatrice and Sidney Webb consulted...
Textual Production Constance Smedley
Like its predecessor, this was published in the USA but not in England. CS dated her foreword 20 July 1923 from Ringwood in Hampshire (presumably meaning Mockbeggar, just a couple of miles away from...
Travel Harriet Beecher Stowe
HBS , now a literary celebrity because of Uncle Tom's Cabin, arrived in Liverpool for a visit in England and Scotland.
HBS took a steamer named the Canada to England in 1853, and about...

Timeline

1917: John Murray (publishers of Isabella Bird...

Writing climate item

1917

John Murray (publishers of Isabella Bird and later Freya Stark ) took over Smith, Elder (publishers of Charlotte Brontë , Charlotte Chanter , and Queen Victoria ).
Murray, John R. “Going Strong”. The Author, Vol.
cxi
, No. 4, 1 Dec.–28 Feb. 2000, pp. 182-4.
183

Texts

Bird, Isabella. A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains. J. Murray, 1879.
Bird, Isabella, and Pat Barr. A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains. Virago, 1982.
Bird, Isabella. Chinese Pictures: Notes on Photographs Made in China. Cassell, 1900.
Bird, Isabella. Heathen Claims and Christian Duty. Morgan and Scott, 1894.
Barr, Pat, and Isabella Bird. “Introduction”. A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, Virago, 1982, p. xiii - xxii.
Bird, Isabella. Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan. John Murray, 1891.
Bird, Isabella. Korea and Her Neighbours. John Murray, 1898, 2 vols.
Bird, Isabella. Notes on Old Edinburgh. Edmonston and Douglas, 1869.
Bird, Isabella. The Aspects of Religion in the United States of America. Sampson Low, Son & Co, 1859.
Bird, Isabella. The Englishwoman in America. J. Murray, 1856.
Bird, Isabella. The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither. John Murray, 1883.
Bird, Isabella. The Hawaiian Archipelago. John Murray, 1875.
Bird, Isabella. The Yangtze Valley and Beyond. John Murray, 1899.
Bird, Isabella. Unbeaten Tracks in Japan. John Murray, 1880, 2 vols.