This was a really quite interesting read, although you have to brace yourself for the shocking feelings and opinions she has of the black Americans she encounters, despite the intellectual arguments she expounds against enslavement, a subject she returns to a number of times. Equally shocking are he

Pretty racist and outdated at times, but some wonderful language and hyperbole

Bird writes of the endless tide of Western emigration in America, fretted with the ceaseless cries of 'Go Ahead!' and 'move on!'

Fascinating account of a well-traveled Englishwoman's voyage to Canada and the United States in 1854.

This book reads like a Christmas family update letter from a distant relative. There are attempts at pithy observation and profundity that come off as sincere, but a bit banal. There are turns of phrase that I can imagine being spoken with that slight hint of self-assessed cleverness that some peopl

Did you ever wonder what life was like in America pre-civil war? Isabella Bird is a young Englishwoman traveling in the north-eastern United States and Canada in the 1850s. The book is packed with information - every detail of life, traveling, education, industry, medicine, shopping, entertainment,

The book offers the perspective of North America from--just what the titles says--an Englishwoman, and her observations are very interesting with its comparisons to her own Britain as well as revealing of her own background and class consciousness. After a while, it did become rather wearisome with