Top ten books about women in the British empire

Stephen Taylor is a writer of biography, history and travel. He has an enduring connection with Africa, where he was born and which provided the setting for his first four book, but in recent years he has turned to people and events from the Georgian age. These themes come together in his latest book, the first comprehensive life of Lady Anne Barnard.

One of Taylor's ten top books about women in the British empire, as shared at the Guardian:

My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin

An Australian novel, born in the outback to a writer who was a teenager when she set down her dream of escaping Possum Gully for a more refined world. So she did, while retaining the independence an upbringing in the bush inspired: “To me,” she wrote (in 1895), “the Prince of Wales will be no more than a shearer, unless when I meet him he displays some personality apart from his princeship – otherwise he can go hang.”

Read about the other books on the list.

My Brilliant Career is among Cal Flyn's ten top books about the Australian bush.

--Marshal Zeringue