Barker, Lady Mary Ann

Definition

“A daughter of the British Empire who lived around the world” (Rhoades 2019), Lady Mary Anne Barker (1831–1911), née Stewart, also known as Lady Broome, was an author best known for her travel writings and settler narratives on colonial life in New Zealand and other colonies. Defining her solely as a travel writer, however, would be inaccurate, because Lady Barker’s works do not follow strictly traditional travel writing pattern, as she tended to focus more on the social life of the settlers and their interpersonal relationships rather than on the landscape or the setting of the countries in which she found herself. Notwithstanding this, along with local domestic life, she also depicted the landscapes and, often in a condescending tone, the local customs as well as the intercultural relations of the faraway, colonized lands and the indigenous people from a colonist’s perspective, rife with colonial undertones and imperial allusions.

Introduction

Lady Barker’s life and work...