Maria Graham's Journal of a Voyage to Brazil 12+

📖 MARIA GRAHAM'S JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE TO BRAZIL is a scholarly edition of nineteenth century travel writer Graham's travel narrative first published in 1824. One of only a few women travelers to have written about her experiences in South America in the early nineteenth century, Graham provides an invaluable first-hand account of Brazil and its transformation from a Portuguese colony to an independent nation. She offers not only observations about social customs, politics, and the role of the British in South America but also insights into Brazilian slavery at a time of rising abolitionist activism. This edition is unique in incorporating Graham's own unpublished corrections to her first edition and in bringing together supplementary materials to contextualize the journal, including contemporary reviews of her narrative, early nineteenth century maps of Brazil, and Graham's unpublished autobiographical and historical sketch, "Life of Don Pedro." The edition also provides an editors' introduction situating Graham's narrative in relation to the few extant travel narratives about Brazil-all written by men-as well as within the socio-historical and cultural landscape of her time, with particular focus on abolitionist discourses and the process of Brazilian independence. Graham actively imagined Brazil as a New World site of extraordinary possibility, and she envisioned herself as furthering the country's development; she critiqued slavery in parti...