Birds of Passage: Henrietta Clive's Travels in South India 1798-1801

The journals of the feisty, independent-minded Lady Henrietta Clive are among the very earliest written accounts of India by a British woman. Married to Lord Edward Clive, son of Clive of India and Governor of Madras, she traveled through Southern India with her children in the aftermath of the Third Mysore War. In this, their first publication, anthropologist Nancy Shields has skillfully interwoven extracts from the journals with passages from the diary of Charly, Henrietta's precocious 12-year-old daughter who went on to tutor the future Queen Victoria, first Empress of India. Important as a historical and as a social document, and also as a feminist travel text, Birds of Passage is illustrated with watercolors by Anna Tonelli, who accompanied the party on their voyage.