X Marks the Spot: Women Writers Map the Empire for British Children 1790-1895

摘要

X Marks the Spot, the title, alluding to anonymity as well as geography, usefully identifies a number of little-known female authors, their texts, print runs, and pedagogic styles. Covering the long nineteenth century (1795-1895), this volume is a welcome addition to discussions of the history of British geographical thought and practice by dint of its two key strands: the first being its focus on the relatively neglected medium of school texts or 'primers'; and its second on women as writers — producers — of those texts. Norcia's agenda is to rehabilitate both into the history of geography and into wider analyses of Britain's imperial age. While recognising the texts themselves as simultaneously 'provocative and problematic', her aim is to provide an exemplar of 'more thoughtful, rigorous ways of re-collecting and framing' Victorian women's geographical writing for children (p. 2).