A Lady's Second Journey Round the World:
from London to the Cape of Good Hope, Borneo, Java, Sumatra, Celebes, Ceram, the Moluccas, etc. California, Panama, Peru, Ecuador, and the United States. London. Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans. 1855
First edition, Two volumes, pp.xii, 451, viii, 423, 24 (adverts). A good set in original green cloth, boards blind decorated. Lightly rubbed, corners bumped, spines bumped and faded. The head and foot of the spine of volume one has a few superficial tears to cloth, and rear inner hinge starting to separate. Previous owner's inscriptions to front end-papers. Armourial Bookplate of J.C. Dale on paste-down of volume one.
Robinson, Wayward Women, pp.25-6
Ida Laura Pfeiffer (1797– 1858) was arguably the first full-time woman traveller: an adventurous Austrian, she dedicated the second half of her life entirely to travelling around the world, and published five works describing her journeys. This was her penultimate work and the last she would live to see, her final work being published posthumously in 1861. She was a budding amateur ethnographer and natural scientist, frequently sending samples back to European museums and discovered several new species. She would likely have become academically renowned had her membership to the Royal Geographical Society in London not been denied due to her being a woman. The journey in this work centres around her primary destination, Borneo, which she visited for six months in 1851-2. After spending some time in Sarawak as the guest of Captain John Brooke she journeyed overland to Pontianiak and the Sambas region of Kalimantan. She took particular interest in the Dayaks and devotes much of the Borneo section (121 pages in Volume 1) to a full description of their life and customs and to a comparison with the Malays, with whom she was less impressed. Other chapters describe Ms Pfeiffer's adventures and observations in Java, Sumatra, Ceram, and the Moluccas.