Researcher: Maxime Honinx
Associated: Marjolein Goethals
How do women in the nineteenth century write about their travels as projects of self-actualisation – against the backdrop of an imperial-patriarchal culture? This project explores travelogues written by women in the long nineteenth century, specifically during the Victorian era. It considers narratives of women who crossed not only continental borders but also transgressed social norms in order to follow ambitious, highly individualist vocations. What does progress and merit (individual and collective) mean to them? What limitations do they perceive and encounter? What language and what forms do they find to write about? These are some of the central questions that shape my research.
So far, I have conducted research and written on Recollections of Tartar Steppes and their Inhabitants (1863) by Lucy Atkinson and A lady's life in the Rocky Mountains (1879) by Isabella Lucy Bird. My article on Atkinson's travelogue, co-authored with Marjolein Goethals, has been published in the English Text Construction special issue Trans(portable): English in the world (2025, John Benjamins), and I presented a paper on Bird's A lady's life at the 2025 ACLALS conference in Nairobi, Kenya. Currently, I am studying Isabella Frances Romer's A pilgrimage to the temples and tombs of Egypt, Nubia, and Palestine, in 1845-6 (1846; 2 vols.). I gave a talk on her travelogue in April 2026 to the CEL19 research network at UGent, in which I explored how Romer tried to navigate writing on the popular topics of Egypt, Nubia, and Palestine, whilst also negotiating specific generic expectations of the travelogue genre. I completed a research trip in June 2026 to London, UK, to examine documents related to Romer's life and career.
From October to December 2026, I am at the Newberry Library in Chicago, IL, USA, where I am conducting research as a Visiting Scholar. During my time at the Newberry, I will use their extensive collection of nineteenth-century maps and travel-related items to contextualise the journeys of Isabella Bird and Marianne North - probably the most well-known travel writers of my corpus - across the North American continent. This research stay is funded by a mobility grant from the FWO, the Flemish Research Council.
Presentations
"Beyond the great archway": Liminal spaces in Lucy Atkinson's Recollections of Tartar steppes and their inhabitants (1863). Panel presentation at BAAHE, December 2024, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium.
"Tolerably independent": Isabella Bird and the ambiguity of travelling the Rocky Mountains. Meritocracy, Writing and the Contingency of Language. Panel presentation at ACLALS, July 2025, University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya.
The two cents of a woman travelling in Isabella Frances Romer's A Pilgrimage to the Temples and Tombs of Egypt, Nubia, and Palestine, in 1845-6 (1846). Talk at CEL19 Research Network, April 2026, Universiteit Gent, Gent, Belgium.
Researching Nineteenth-century Women Travel Writers, and the Process as (the) Material. Talk at WOLEC, October 2026, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium.
Publications
Honinx, Maxime, and Marjolein Goethals. “An ‘English Home’: Constructions of Familiarity and Instability in Lucy Atkinson’s Recollections of Tartar Steppes and Their Inhabitants (1863).” English Text Construction, vol. 18, no. 2, 2025, pp. 136-165. https://doi.org/10.1075/etc.25011.pir
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by Benjamin Stone © National Portrait Gallery, London | by Alfred, Count D'Orsay © National Portrait Gallery, London |
