For over sixteen centuries, women have been undertaking great journeys and writing about their experiences, yet the traditional image of them is still that of a brave Victorian lady vigorously prodding the ends of the Earth with her parasol. But by their very nature, women travelers are a non-conformist breed. The abbess Etheria's fourth-century account of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land relates not only the religious significance of her journey, but also the difficulties mountaineering on Mount Sinai. Mary Wollstonecraft wrote of her secret voyage in 1795 to Scandinavia--all for the love of a cad. And some of the most glamorous women of the 1920s were likely to feel just as comfortable at a supper club as stalking their dinner in a central-Asian wasteland.Now reissued in attractive new covers and illustrated with eight pages of black and white plates, Wayward Women recounts the adventures of some 400 of these travelers, together with full bibliographical details of all of the books they produced between them. These writings, many of which are brought to light here for the first time in generations, form a significant and previously neglected body of literature, full of insight, courage, and humor.