Fearless World Traveler by Laurie Lawlor

Trapped into a caretaking role until her father's death, she finally found freedom at age forty. Marianne North born into great wealth in England and faced a total lack of support for her interests in music, art, and botany.

The premise of the book is rather straightforward.

Stadtlander's vibrant watercolor and ink illustrations capture details that conjure the rich peculiarities of North’s intrepid and privileged life. Backmatter includes biographical note, sources, source notes, and character list. Lawlor's narrative of North's astounding journeys on steamships, camels, and canoes weaves in direct quotes that capture her irrepressible spirit. Lawlor's text is rather simplistic, straightforward, and informative. Marianne North was a prolific English Victorian biologist and botanical artist, notable for her plant and landscape paintings, her extensive foreign travels, her writings, her plant discoveries and the creation of her gallery at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. It is an introduction to a prolific painter with a love for all species. I wish someone would put some of these true stories of remarkable women on the screen! Wouldn't it be fascinating to follow Marianne on her journeys around the world? I imagine BBC could do something really beautiful! (They should do Nellie Bly's round-the-world journey while they're at it, ha!)įearless World Traveler: Adventures of Marianne North, Botanical Artist is a children's picture book written by Laurie Lawlor and illustrated by Becca Stadtlander. See the photos and video on the page for her Kew Gardens gallery: walking into Marianne's gallery at Kew Gardens on typically gray British day and suddenly feeling transported to Australia or Jamaica or Africa thanks to the beautiful artwork that surrounded you! Imagine, a world before photographs and movies and internet. This gave so much more richness and vibrancy and helped those who saw the work feel more immersed in the plant's native area. What amazing things she did at a time of life when many others in that era were already wind down for 'old age'! I was especially interested to note that her botanical art, unlike most at the time, actually showed the backdrop for the plant she depicted. At age forty, she finally had her freedom.

Marianne took care of her father and led a fairly conventional (from the sound of it) life from the time she was twenty-four until he passed away sixteen years later. I love reading about women who write their own journey and I love reading about women whose adventures come later in life. This book is well-written and beautifully illustrated (I'm grateful the end papers show some of Marianne's own artwork) and the back matter is rich and extensive. Marianne was a wild bird who not only refused to let Victorian gender roles confine her but also changed the course of botanical illustration forever.'

Fearless World Traveler by Laurie Lawlor