Paperback: In Britannia's Daughters (sec edn 2006), bestselling novelist Joanna Trollope examines the contribution of women in building and sustaining the British Empire.
Drawing on a vast range of sources, including diaries and letters home, she provides a panoramic picture of the countless women who departed Britain for India, Australia, the Far East, Canada and Africa - often in search of opportunities unavailable at home.
"Some left England quite frankly in pursuit of a husband, some to earn a living or a status denied them at home, some - more as time went on - to accompany and support men in the lonely, difficult and responsible business of setting up and maintaining colonial rule; some went because missionary zeal was so much part of the Victorian religious attitude and found themselves nursing and teaching with equipment and in conditions that would not be contemplated today; and some, commonly those with private means, went out to explore the world quite literally, travelling astounding distances and bringing back with them anthropological information and botanical specimens which contributed significantly to the scientific research of the day."
Englishwomen people this (non-fiction) book as they peopled the Empire - their astonishing courage and endurance, their remarkable personal stories vividly and enthrallingly recaptured.
About the author: Joanna Trollope was born in December 1943. She is the eldest of three, the mother of two daughters and the stepmother of two stepsons - and now a grandmother. Joanna went to school in Surrey and then to Oxford. After a spell in the Foreign Office, she became a teacher before becoming a full time writer. She first wrote historical novels under the name Caroline Harvey, then Britannia's Daughters (1983), followed by her contemporary works of fiction, several of which have been televised. The Choir (1988) was her first contemporary novel and The Rector's Wife (1991), her first number one bestseller, made her into a household name. Joanna was awarded the OBE in the 1996 Queen's Birthday Honours List, for services to literature.
She has a huge commitment to people: "I mind more and more about people, especially vulnerable and disadvantaged ones." She supports The Gloucestershire Community Foundation, The March Foundation, for Dementia, RNIB (especially the Right to Read Campaign), the Meningitis Trust, Mulberry Bush School and Breast Cancer Care. When she considers what has happened to her career in the last ten years, she often thinks, as her friend Jilly Cooper once said, "You'd believe it, wouldn't you, if it happened to someone else."
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