Pages:
361
Original
date of publication: 2007
My
edition: 2008 (Anchor Books)
Why
I decided to read:
How
I acquired my copy: LibraryThing Secret Santa, December 2010
Elizabeth
Marsh was truly an interesting and remarkable woman. Conceived in Jamaica and born
in 1735, Marsh literally traveled from the time she was in the womb. She
visited Morocco, the Mediterranean, Florida, and India. The books covers not
only Elizabeth’s story, but her family’s and, by extension, world history.
Because her father and grandfather were shipbuilders, Marsh’s life was linked
to the English Royal Navy and the world of the British Empire. It was a time
when there was a growing awareness of and connections between various cultures
of the world, and Marsh’s story in some part personalizes that experience.
In
some ways, her life and adventures were similar to those of Eliza Fay, who
wrote her “Letters” from India roughly a generation later. Both were
lower-middle class (if you could use that term for 18th century social
classes); both married and followed their husbands to India; both had unusual
adventures in captivity and out of it. Marsh also kept a record of her travels,
mainly from her Moroccan and Indian journeys. There is an unusually large
record of Marsh’s life and the lives of her ancestors, which the authors drew
from in order to write this book. Unlike Eliza Fay, however, you don’t really
get a feel for what Marsh might have been like; certainly she was intrepid and
adventurous, but you don’t get much of a concrete sense of her personality
beyond that. I would have loved to have read actual passages in their whole
from the diary.
Still,
the book does a great job of tying Marsh’s story in with the larger events of
the period. The book is punctuated throughout with black and white and color
portraits and pictures.
No comments:
Post a Comment