Mary Kingsley travelled to Africa alone, with no knowledge or experience of the languages and cultures she would encounter. She marched, climbed, and hacked her way through the Congo in the early 1890s, "a Victorian Lady in Africa." And she wrote about it in an absorbing, witty, and intelligent manner.

I was introduced to Mary Kingsley as a student, by Professor Laurence Kitzan, who taught history at the University of Saskatchewan. Her spirit has moved me ever since. Thus, the name of my company, Kingsley Publishing Services. If I could travel back in time, it is Mary Kingsley I would choose to meet.

Kingsley was born into a distinguished literary family and yearned for a proper education. Instead she was required to play the role of a Victorian lady and perform domestic duties and care for a bed-ridden mother and, later, an alcoholic brother. When she was orphaned at age thirty she ventured into the heart of Africa in her black dresses, crinolines, and white blouses. It was such a wildly unusual thing to do and she did it with engaging eccentricity. Some scholars have suggested that she had a "death wish," but I do not believe for a second that this woman who set out to collect "fish and fetish" did not embrace life, despite heading to the "White Man's Grave."

Books by Mary Kingsley

Travels in West Africa (1897)

West African Studies (1899)

Book about Mary Kingsley

A Voyageur Out: The Life of Mary Kingsley by Katherine Frank

A Victorian Lady in Africa: The Story of Mary Kingsley by Valerie Grosvenor Myer