The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands
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The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands by Mary Seacole
A far cry from the nineteenth-century slave narrative tradition, this book, written in 1857, is a special kind of success story. With delightful urbanity and wit, Mary Seacole, a free-born Jamaican Creole, recounts her childhood as a daughter of a Scottish army officer and a free black boarding-house keeper, her years as a storekeeper in a Central American frontier town, and her role as a battlefield 'doctress' to British troops in the Crimean War. She emerges as an independent and respected maternal figure, the acme of female achievement in Victorian culture, and a symbol of 'home' to British soldiers alienated by war.
There is distressingly little black prose of consequence to be found in the English canon before the 20th centuryMary Seacole stands out as a gloriously entertaining exception, a Caribbean witness to the black experience in the Victorian age who deserves to be much better known -- Robert McCrum * ‘The 100 best nonfiction books’, Guardian *
Traveller, entrepreneur, healer and woman of colour, Mary Seacole is a singular and fascinating figure -- Jan Marsh * Independent *
Traveller, entrepreneur, healer and woman of colour, Mary Seacole is a singular and fascinating figure -- Jan Marsh * Independent *
Mary Seacole was born in Kingston in 1805 to a Scottish father and free Jamaican mother. She learnt West African herbal medicine from her mother who ran a boarding house. She travelled extensively honing her medical knowledge and she set up a number of businesses. When the Crimean War broke out she applied for nursing work but was denied multiple times. She decided to travel to Crimea herself and opened a very successful hotel providing food and respite to soldiers. She returned to England in poor health and deep in debt. However her supporters organised fundraising events in her honour which revived her fortunes and she published her memoirs in 1857. She died in 1881.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781529040326 |
| ISBN 10 | 1529040329 |
| Title | The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands |
| Author | Mary Seacole |
| Series | Macmillan Collector's Library |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Pan Macmillan |
| Year published | 2020-06-25 |
| Number of pages | 208 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |