Mary Parker Dunning

One of the most delightful biographical memoirs I've ever had the pleasure to read. Covering her sixteen-month-long honeymoon trip to Japan and across the globe as well as selected stories about later life trips to round out the book Mrs. Dunning provides an elegantly written and interesting view of travel and places during the times she traveled providing vivid descriptions that capture the scenes better than any photo, monochrome or color.

While some information she discusses is inaccurate (or has been proven so in the intervening century) it does not detract from the story or the reader's pleasure at her insights.

From the foreword:

      A little boy of nine had the measles. His father gave him a stamp book and a packet of foreign stamps. The child was enchanted. He said, "I am going to see every place in the world where there's a stamp." And he did.

      ...On September 23, 1908, I married (Harry Westbrook Dunning), and then I, too, began to see all the places that were pictured on the postage stamps.

      It's almost sixty years since we took our first trip together, to a world which has now entirely changed. So I got out my old letters, written home so faithfully when I was a bride, and realized that what I saw could not be seen now. Perhaps a younger generation would like to know what that world was like.

* Won in The Armchair Travel Swap Fall 2008… (meer)