Isabella Lucy Bird was the most famous and influential of the Victorian "lady travelers." Traveling supposedly for her health, she climbed mountains and volcanoes and rode horseback astride, not sidesaddle, over hundreds of miles in the dead of winter in Colorado. In her travels she suffered from frostbite, broken ribs and arms, cholera, and burns from close brushes with volcanoes. She survived near drowning in Malaysia and attacks in China that left her with a concussion at the age of sixty-three. Her most famous travel books grew out of her letters to her beloved sister, Hennie, who stayed in England, patiently collecting Isabella's letters. With Hennie's encouragement Bird revised her letters to produce popular travel books that earned her an instant reputation as one of those spinster travelers who escaped the confines of Victorian society to establish a career. Bird was among the first women invited to join...