Sarah Bowditch LEE (nee Wallis, 1791-1856). Stories of Strange Lands and fragments from the Notes of a Traveller. London: Edward Moxon, 1835. Octavo. 6 uncolored lithographed plates. (Some spotting). Original green cloth with an overall embossed pattern, the spine blocked in gilt with title within a decorative cartouche. (Spine rubbed and bumped at head and foot, corners bumped, old repair to rear inner hinges).
A nice copy of this interesting and quite rare work by one of the more intrepid female African explorers.
Sarah Bowdich Lee (née Wallis) (Sept. 10, 1791 - Sept. 22, 1856) was an English author, illustrator, traveller, zoologist, botanist, and pteridologist. In 1813 Sara Wallis married Thomas Edward Bowdich, the naturalist. She shared her husband's interests in nature, travel, and adventure. In 1819 they went to Paris to visit Baron Cuvier; Thomas had already visited him in 1818 with a letter of introduction obtained from Dr. William Elford Leach of the British Museum. Cuvier received the two with great warmth and hospitality, and they spent most of the next four years in Paris studying his collections. In 1823 on their final trip to Africa, they visited Madeira on their way, but her husband died on the Gambia river on 10th January 1824. Left with three children she struggled to support her family as an author. In the early part of her widowhood Sarah Bowdich often visited Baron Cuvier in Paris, where he treated her almost like a daughter; upon his death in 1832 she wrote a memoir of his life. In 1826 she married Robert Lee and in subsequent years published under the name "Mrs. Robert Lee."
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