SpringerLink
Log in

Kindersley (née Wicksteed), Jemima

  • Living reference work entry
  • Latest version View entry history
  • First Online:
The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Romantic-Era Women's Writing

Abstract

Jemima Kindersley, née Wicksteed (1741–1809), was one of the first British women to write and publish a firsthand account of her travels to the Indian subcontinent. She and her infant son traveled to India in 1764 and lived there for 5 years before returning to England due to poor health. In India to accompany her husband, who worked as an officer with Britain’s East India Company (EIC), she carefully documented her observations, experiences, and reflections as a traveler. Her resulting Letters from the Island of Teneriffe, Brazil, the Cape of Good Hope, and the East Indies (1777) offer an English woman’s perspective on a significant chapter in Britain’s early imperial endeavors in India. After returning to England, Kindersley met Samuel Johnson and others in the London literary circuit; she went on to publish and translate a number of essays before moving to Bath, where she spent the rest of her life.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Barros, Carolyn A. and Johanna M. Smith, eds. 2000. Life-Writings by British Women, 1660–1815: An Anthology. Boston: Northeastern University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fisher, Michael H. 2013. “Early Asian Travelers to the West: Indians in Britain, c.1600-c.1850.” World History Connected 10 (4): 40 pars. <https://worldhistoryconnected.press.uillinois.edu/10.1/forum_fisher.html>.

  • Hodgson, Henry. 1778. Letters to Mrs. Kindersley. Lincoln, W. Wood.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kindersley, Jemima. 1777. Letters from the Island of Teneriffe, Brazil, the Cape of Good Hope, and the East Indies. London, J. Nourse.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———, ed. and trans. 1781. Introduction to An Essay on the Character, the Manners, and the Understanding of Women, in Different Ages … With two original essays, by Antoine Léonard Thomas, iii–vi. London, J. Dodsley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, Sidney, ed. 1892. “Kindersley, Sir Richard Torin.” Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. 31. New York: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rossouw, Fransie. 1997. “Mrs Jemima Kindersley (1741–1809): An Early Traveller at the Cape.” Quarterly Bulletin of the South African Library 51 (4): 151–4.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sudan, Rajani. 2016. The Alchemy of Empire: Abject Materials and the Technologies of Colonialism. New York: Fordham University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Thompson, Carl. 2020. General Introduction. In Women’s Travel Writing in India 1777–1854, Vol. 1, edited by Carl Thompson, ix–xxix. Abingdon: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

Further Reading

  • Brant, Clare. 2000. “Climates of Gender.” In Romantic Geographies: Discourses of Travel, 1775–1844, edited by Amanda Gilroy, 129–49. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nayar, Pramod K. 2002. “The Imperial Sublime: English Travel Writing and India, 1750–1820.” Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 2 (2): 57–99.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nussbaum, Felicity. 2005. “British Women Write the East after 1750: Revisiting a ‘Feminine’ Orient.” In British Women’s Writing in the Long Eighteenth Century: Authorship, Politics and History, edited by Jennie Batchelor and Cora Kaplan, 121–39. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Turner, Katherine. 2001. British Travel Writers in Europe, 1750–1800: Authorship, Gender, and National Identity. Burlington: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biola University, La Mirada, CA, USA

    Bethany Williamson

Authors
  1. Bethany Williamson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Bethany Williamson .

Section Editor information

  1. Graham School of General Studies, Emerita, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Elisabeth Lenckos

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this entry

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this entry

Williamson, B. (2023). Kindersley (née Wicksteed), Jemima. In: The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Romantic-Era Women's Writing. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11945-4_215-2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11945-4_215-2

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-11945-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-11945-4

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Chapter history

  1. Latest

    Wicksteed), Jemima
    Published:
    14 February 2023

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11945-4_215-2

  2. Original

    Wicksteed), Jemima
    Published:
    14 January 2023

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11945-4_215-1

Search

Navigation