Marianne North was an exceptional Victorian traveler. She had the good fortune of accompanying her father, Frederick North, sometimes a member of Parliament for Hastings, on his professional and leisurely travels abroad. When her mother--whom Marianne North identified only as "the beautiful widow of Robert Shuttleworth of Gawthorpe Hall in Lancashire" and "the eldest daughter of Sir John Marjoribanks, Bart., of Lees, MP for Berwickshire"--was quite ill and near death in 1855, Mrs. North made her daughter promise never to leave her father. This promise ironically proved to be liberating for the young woman, for until his death in 1869 she traveled throughout Europe and the far reaches of the British Empire with her father. After 1869 she set out alone in search of natural wonders. From 1871 until 1882 she continued to travel, as she visited almost every continent and many islands in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. As an amateur...