Butterflies and Late Loves: The Further Travels and Adventures of a Victorian

This selection from her diaries, linked by W.F. Cater's superb commentary, covers the period from 1913 until 1939, a few months before her death. Margaret Fountaine's insatiable desire for travel took her to some of the loneliest and most beautiful places in the world, among them Australia, Brazil, Kenya, the Amazon, Siam and the West Indies.

Most of the time she was accompanied by Khalil Neimy, her loyal and enigmatic Syrian lover, to whom she was devoted for twenty-seven years. In later life she endured considerable hardship and sorrow, yet her energy and adventurous spirit rarely faltered. She was an outstanding woman by the standards of any age, and her diaries are a fascinating record of a "wild and fearless life".