Penelope Tuson is an archivist and historian and was formerly Curator of Middle East Archives (India Office Collections) in the British Library. She later worked with the British Library's Consultancy Services, providing research and documentation services to academic and Government clients and subsequently joined the International Dispute Resolution Practice of a major U.S. law firm. She now specialises in collection development consultancy for libraries, archives and private individuals, while concentrating her personal academic interest on women's history. Her publications include The Queen's Daughters: an Anthology of Victorian Feminist Writings on India (1995) and Playing the Game: Western Women in Arabia, 1892-1939 (2003).

Tuson's knowledgeable and lively text manages to encompass a great diversity of female experience; and the exotic element of the subject matter is represented in the large number of illustrations, many depicting conventional oriental scenes.

• Introduction ; 1. 'The Most Excellent Talents': Eighteenth-Century Journeys to the Seraglio ; 2. Beyond Istanbul: Desert Journeys and the Overland Route to India ; 3. From Kabul to the Crimea: Women, War and the 'Great Game' ; 4. 'Shaped by the East': Feminists and Revolutionaries in the mid-Nineteenth Century ; 5. The Queen's Daughters: Finding a Female Voice in the Age of Imperialism ; 6. Shifting Identities: Politics and Adventure on the Borderlands of Empire ; 7. Dancing to the Dig: Women and Archaeology before the First World War ; 8. Arabia Deserta: the Najd Journeys of Lady Anne Blunt and Gertrude Bell

Penelope Tuson is an archivist and historian and was formerly Curator of Middle East Archives (India Office Collections) in the British Library. She later worked with the British Library's Consultancy Services, providing research and documentation services to academic and Government clients and subsequently joined the International Dispute Resolution Practice of a major U.S. law firm. She now specialises in collection development consultancy for libraries, archives and private individuals, while concentrating her personal academic interest on women's history. Her publications include The Queen's Daughters: an Anthology of Victorian Feminist Writings on India (1995) and Playing the Game: Western Women in Arabia, 1892-1939 (2003).

Tuson's knowledgeable and lively text manages to encompass a great diversity of female experience; and the exotic element of the subject matter is represented in the large number of illustrations, many depicting conventional oriental scenes.

• Introduction ; 1. 'The Most Excellent Talents': Eighteenth-Century Journeys to the Seraglio ; 2. Beyond Istanbul: Desert Journeys and the Overland Route to India ; 3. From Kabul to the Crimea: Women, War and the 'Great Game' ; 4. 'Shaped by the East': Feminists and Revolutionaries in the mid-Nineteenth Century ; 5. The Queen's Daughters: Finding a Female Voice in the Age of Imperialism ; 6. Shifting Identities: Politics and Adventure on the Borderlands of Empire ; 7. Dancing to the Dig: Women and Archaeology before the First World War ; 8. Arabia Deserta: the Najd Journeys of Lady Anne Blunt and Gertrude Bell