Wanderings of a Pilgrim, in search of the Picturesque, Vol I

This mid 19th-century book by Fanny Parkes Parlby is an account that illustrates her independent travels in India. Fanny Parkes, born as Frances Susanna Archer in 1794, arrived in Calcutta from England in 1822 and eventually set out on solo explorations, sometimes on horseback or a boat, across India.

She pieced together her account from her notes and long letters to her mother, culminating in Wandering of the Pilgrim in two volumes in 1850. The account offers an insight into the perspectives of a middle-class British woman’s fascination with people and places she encountered during her stay in India. It contains her sketches and paintings, descriptions of the Zenana and home life were often left out of in travel accounts of the time.