During the long nineteenth century, British women reframed the masculine paradigm of the Grand Tour. They created a feminist travel gaze, intentionally or unintentionally, that differed from that of male peers. Unlike their brothers, who went for personal edification, women with means left their English homes for the great Italian cities of Florence, Naples, and Rome to escape personal disappointments and the social limitations imposed by parents, spouses, and society. The anonymity of travel to a distant land and new freedoms fostered political and creative achievements, including entrepreneurial journalism, literary masterpieces, and social advocacy for their gender, which redefined the contours of the Anglo-Italian cultural landscape. The historical evidence presented here testifies to the life-changing capacity of travel and firmly demonstrates how British womens history and literature enriches and broadens narratives about Britain and the World.
Chapter 1: Introduction; Marilyn D. Button and Jessica A.
Sheetz-Nguyen.- Part I. Women Travellers from the French Revolution to The
Napoleonic Era.
Chapter 2: Hamiltons Wife and Nelsons Paramour: Emma, Lady
Hamilton in Naples; Cheryl C. D. Hughes.
Chapter 3: Breaking New Ground:
The Italian Experience of Elizabeth Cavendish, Second Duchess of Devonshire;
Ronald J. Weber.- Part II. Entrepreneurial Journalists in Emerging Italy.-
Chapter 4: "My country women would rather hear": Hester Lynch Piozzis
Regendering of the Grand Tour; Thomas J. Prasch.
Chapter 5: Love, Dirt, and
Superstition among the Ruins: Charlotte Eatons Protestant View of Catholic
Rome; Renée Jeanne Schlueter.
Chapter 6: Inventing the Travel Guide: Mariana
Starkes Advice for the Independent Traveler; Nigel ą Brassard.
Chapter 7:
From Flying Visit to Final Home: Mrs Trollope in Florence; Marilyn D.
Button.- Part III. Literary Lights in Risorgimento Italy.
Chapter 8: Rambles
in Il Bel Paese: Mary Shelleys Anglo-Italian Visioning; Renée Jeanne
Schlueter.
Chapter 9: "I will write plain words to England": Elizabeth
Barrett Brownings Aurora Leigh; Lisa Angelella.
Chapter 10: Timebound and
Timeless in Italy: Why Eliot Chose Florence for Romola; Marilyn D. Button.-
Part IV. Inspired Social Activists.
Chapter 11: By Art and Spirit: Florence
Nightingales Transformation in Rome; Lauren M. Riepl and Jessica A.
Sheetz-Nguyen.
Chapter 12: "Victory is not won simply by assertion of
principles alone": Josephine Butlers Crusade in Italy; Jessica A.
Sheetz-Nguyen.
Chapter 13: Exploring the Wild Zone: Amelia B. Edwards
Travels the Italian Dolomites; Dona M. Cady.
Chapter 14: Conclusion; Marilyn
D. Button and Jessica A. Sheetz-Nguyen.
Marilyn D. Button is a Professor of English at Lincoln University of Pennsylvania in the USA. She is co-editor of two books: The Foreign Woman in British Literature: Exotics, Aliens, and Outsiders (1999) and The Victorian Case for Charity: Essays on Responses to English Poverty by the State, the Church and the Literati (2013).
Jessica A. Sheetz-Nguyen is an Emerita Professor of History at the University of Central Oklahoma and an Adjunct Professor of History at the University of Maryland Global Campus in the USA. She is the author of Victorian Women: Unwed Mothers and the London Foundling Hospital (2012) and co-editor of The Victorian Case for Charity: Essays on Responses to English Poverty by the State, the Church, and the Literati (2013).
