Anne Elwood
{{Short description|British traveller, writer and biographer}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox Writer
| name = Anne Elwood
| image = Elwood, Anne Katharine from Narrative of a Journey Overland from England.jpg
| imagesize =
| caption = Elwood was carried between two camels
| pseudonym = Mrs Elwood
| birth_date = 1796
| birth_place =
| death_date = 24 February 1873
| death_place = Clayton Priory
| occupation = writer
| nationality = British
| period =
| genre =
| subject = travel and biography
| footnotes =
}}
Anne Elwood (née Curteis, 1796 – 24 February 1873) was a British traveller, writer, and biographer. It was claimed that she was the first woman to travel overland from Britain to India.
Life
Anne was born in 1796 to Edward Jeremiah Curteis, a writer and independent Member of Parliament for Sussex, and his wife Mary Curteis. They lived near Battle.
She married on 9 January 1824 to Major Charles William Elwood. He was about 15 years older than her and he had worked for many years for the East India Company. The couple set off for India in 1825 and it was claimed that she was the first British woman to travel overland to India.[http://www4.wlv.ac.uk/btw/authors/1048 Anne Elwood], Wolverhampton University, Retrieved 17 November 2016 She described her journey using the device of letters home which she published after her return as Narrative of a Journey Overland from England to India in 1830. The book describes her journey to India via Egypt and it is illustrated by Elwood and her husband. She advised on the need for riding habits, three days of underwear, and several evening dresses.{{cite book|author=Deborah Manley|title=Women Travellers in Egypt: From the Eighteenth to the Twenty-first Century|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=46h2AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA6|date=30 November 2013|publisher=The American University in Cairo Press|isbn=978-977-416-570-2|pages=6–}}
In addition to descriptions of her time in India while her husband was leading a regiment, Elwood's book also includes material on the couple's return to England in 1828 by sea.Deborah Manley, ‘Elwood , Anne Katharine (1796–1873)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/48643, accessed 17 Nov 2016]
Her second book was also remarkable. Elwood claims in the preface that she could not find a book about women writers and so she decided to write one. Memoirs of the literary ladies of England from the commencement of the last century, published in 1841, describes the lives of 29 leading women writers. Elwood knew several of the subjects and she was given access to their documents. The book was well regarded and was used as a source for the Dictionary of National Biography, though her writing was not always objective. She included Emma Roberts among her leading women, a poet and travel writer who had also travelled to India, though Elwood thought Roberts's journey of two months in 1839 was too fast.{{Cite book
| last = Elwood
| first = Mrs.
| title = Memoirs of the literary ladies of England
| publisher = Henry Colburn
| year = 1843
| location = London
| page = 333
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=ROsQAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA318
}} Memoirs was reprinted in a modern edition in 1973 by AMS Press.
Elwood died in Clayton Priory, Sussex, in 1873.
Works
- Narrative of a Journey Overland from England, by the Continent of Europe, Egypt, and the Red Sea, to India, Including a Residence There, and Voyage Home, in the Years 1825, 26, 27, and 28 By Mrs Colonel Elwood. London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, 1830.Elwood, Anne Katharine. Narrative of a Journey Overland from England, by the Continent of Europe, Egypt, and the Red Sea, to India, Including a Residence There, and Voyage Home, in the Years 1825, 26, 27, and 28 By Mrs Colonel Elwood. The Women's Print History Project, 2019, [https://womensprinthistoryproject.com/title/659 title ID 659]. Accessed 2023-09-10.
([https://archive.org/details/narrativeajourn01elwogoog Vol. I], [https://archive.org/details/narrativeajourn00elwogoog Vol. II], Internet Archive)
- Memoirs of the literary ladies of England from the commencement of the last century. London: H. Colburn, 1843. ([https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Anne_Katharine_Curteis_Elwood_Lady_Mary_Wortley_Mo?id=eMSNUL3z4cQC Vol. I], [https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Anne_Katharine_Curteis_Elwood_Memoirs_of_the_Liter?id=5-b30XY-IVcC Vol. II], Google)
References
{{reflist}}
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Elwood, Anne}}
Category:British travel writers
Category:British people in colonial India
Category:19th-century British women writers
Category:19th-century British writers