As a travel writer, novelist, and political and social activist, Florence Douglas Dixie used her writing to expose and to remedy the injustices in her world. Born into wealth and privilege, she rebelled against her lot by transforming herself into a passionate advocate of oppressed populations--women, the Irish, and the Zulu, as well as animals. The writer of her obituary in the London Times (8 November 1905) deemed her views "somewhat peculiar"; other contemporaries saw her as a courageous reformer and social visionary.

Florence Caroline Douglas and her twin brother were born on 24 May 1857, the youngest of six children born to Archibald William Douglas, the seventh Marquis of Queensbury, and Caroline Margaret Clayton Douglas, the daughter of Gen. Sir William Robert Clayton. An athletic child who joined her brothers in vigorous outdoor exercise, Douglas experienced turbulent family instability during her first seven years. Her father accidentally shot himself in 1860 while...