Hanging Fruit Spear Bird Feeder from Isabella

Suffering from an unspecified illness, Isabella Bird left her English home in 1878 journeying to Japan to "improve her health." Her unorthodox cure consisted of buying a local horse and exploring the islands of the reclusive Japanese homeland. The Long Rider author carefully documented various aspects of the fascinating culture she discovered, describing a host of subjects ranging from "Children's Games" to "A Narrow Escape." "I lived among the Japanese, and saw their mode of living, in regions unaffected...

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If you open an anthology of travel writing- particularly women s travel writing-you are bound to find an excerpt by Isabella Bird. However, while Isabella Lucy Bird is much celebrated for traveling the globe, challenging convention, and becoming the first woman to gain admission into the Royal Geographical Society, little attention has been paid to the progression of her costume changes and how her authority over her attire corresponds to her growing authority as a writer and an emboldened explorer. Bird actively uses her dress as a performative space; her clothing descriptions become her ultimate layer of costuming as she both translates and transgresses Victorian standards of femininity in order to package herself as a professional explorer who is also a woman. Although gender boundaries and expectations have changed, gender continues to incite intense conversation, and this work can contribute to discussions on gender performance in writing and costume.