Release date is 2025-11-15

Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)

"Voyage d'une femme autour du monde" by Ida Pfeiffer is a travelogue written in the mid-19th century. It chronicles a resolute Austrian woman’s circumnavigation and observations of distant lands, peoples, and natural phenomena in a plain, factual style. Expect practical details of seafaring life, candid social commentary—including on slavery and colonial society—and vivid descriptions of ports and landscapes.

The opening of the travelogue presents a brief biographical portrait celebrating the traveler’s courage, earlier journeys, and modesty (echoed by Humboldt’s praise), followed by a preface that vows simple, truthful reporting. She departs Austria for Hamburg, waits for a companion, then sails on a Danish brig toward Brazil, contrasting steamships with sailing vessels and giving brisk, practical advice on provisions, cramped cabins, and onboard routines. The narrative lingers on the slow progress down the Elbe and through the Channel, calms and tempests, phosphorescent seas, flying fish, and a captured Portuguese man-of-war, then the equator crossing without theatrics and sudden squalls (vamperos) before the spectacular arrival in Rio’s bay. It then turns to first impressions of Rio de Janeiro: modest architecture save for an imposing aqueduct, dirty markets and streets, the pervasive presence and policing of enslaved Black laborers, remarks on slavery’s practice, and quick sketches of the city’s arts and public religious festivities attended by the youthful imperial couple. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Originally published: Paris: Lirairie de L. Hachette et cie, 1858