The Women Who Went Round the World: The extraordinary stories of true pioneers in global circumnavigation
Sally Smith

Humans have been great travellers for thousands of years but it is only in fairly recent history, after Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition in 1519, that it was finally demonstrated that the world was indeed round.

Since then, many men have made a full global circumnavigation with some, such as Sir Francis Drake and Captain James Cook, becoming household names.

For women, with their traditional roles of looking after the house and children, there were far fewer opportunities to take part in exciting expeditions. Some did manage it and many of these women, such as Lady Hester Stanhope, Marianne North, Isabella Bird and Gertrude Bell, are well recognised in history and their writings, stories and pictures continue to enthral us.

However, there is one group of women which has somehow been omitted from most of the history books and records, women who were true explorers and pioneers yet whose names are unrecognised and their stories virtually unknown.

These are the women who were the very first to go right around the world, to experience the extraordinary variety of different lives, languages and scenery across the entire globe and then to return home with a wealth of fascinating stories and incredible tales that they could use to entertain their friends for the rest of their lives.

This book was written to finally record and properly set down the stories of the remarkable journeys made by these women, the very first women to achieve a full circumnavigation by sea and land and, more recently, in the air and in space. Some of their stories are breathtaking, others are simply hugely entertaining, but they all deserve a proper place in the history books.