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Distributed for Reaktion Books

Way Makers

An Anthology of Women’s Writing about Walking

Distributed for Reaktion Books

Way Makers

An Anthology of Women’s Writing about Walking

A sweeping collection of women’s writing on the wandering path, moving across genres, geographies, and centuries.
 
The follow-up to the celebrated Wanderers, Kerri Andrews’s Way Makers is the first anthology of women’s writing about walking. Moving from Elizabeth Carter’s correspondence with Catherine Talbot in the eighteenth century through to Merryn Glover in the present day, and across poetry, letters, diaries, novels, and more, this anthology traces a long tradition of women’s walking literature. Walking is, for the women included in this anthology, a source of creativity and comfort; it is a means of expressing grief, longing, and desire. It is also a complicated activity: it represents freedom but is also sometimes tinged with danger and fear. What cannot be denied any longer is that walking was, and continues to be, an activity full of physical and emotional significance for women: this anthology is a testament to the rich literary heritage created by generations of women walker-writers over the centuries.

336 pages | 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 | © 2023

Literature and Literary Criticism: General Criticism and Critical Theory

Sport and Recreation

Women's Studies


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Reviews

 "A lovely book to dip into and out of, it collects work from women who have written about walking, from the 1700s through to today. Think poetry, journals, fiction, from Mary Wollstonecraft, Virginia Woolf, Mary Shelley to Cheryl Strayed and Sarah Moss."

Toronto Star

"'This anthology is a start. May it not be the end,' Andrews writes, before tracing the long literary heritage of Gwen John, Virginia Woolf, Cheryl Strayed, Camille T. Dungy and others across countries, genres and centuries."

Globe and Mail

“As this anthology—the first of women’s writing about walking—shows, social assumptions about ladylike behavior, the dangers of being alone and about women’s physical abilities have complicated this expression of freedom in a way rarely experienced by men. At the same time, the journals of Dorothy Wordsworth, the diaries of Virginia Woolf, the exquisite prose of Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain and Simone de Beauvoir’s fearless solo hikes in the south of France testify to the spirit and exhilaration with which these writers walked. There’s so much to savor here.”

Spectrum

"Way Makers offers a wonderful array of excerpts from prose and poetry spanning 400 years, assembled by Andrews. Women walk for necessity as well as fun, to see the world, rejoice in nature and experience the awe of new vistas. Overall these pieces conjure an exhilarating sense of the freedom conferred on women by walking, despite the dangers and challenges."

Tablet

"Lays claim to being 'the first anthology of women's writing about walking.' . . . Andrews's groundbreaking Way Makers—stretching to around 300 pages with more than 70 entries spanning the centuries—is, she says, 'a small sample' of female words on walking. In its introduction she concludes: 'This anthology is a start. May it not be the end.'"

Sunday Post, Scotland

"An anthology that celebrates the literary heritage created by generations of women walker-writers."

Scottish Wildlife Magazine

"From the eighteenth century to the present day, and taking in poetry, letters, diaries, novels and more, this anthology traces the long tradition of women writing about walking. Among the many writers included are Mary Wollstonecraft, Jane Austen, Raynor Winn, Cheryl Strayed, Sarah Moss and Polly Atkin."

Bookseller

“Indeed, although anthologies of walking have been appearing in bookshops since at least the early 1900s, Andrews’ Way Makers: an Anthology of Women’s Writing about Walking is the first to emphasize women’s contributions. Bringing together 75 works across numerous genres from the eighteenth century through the present day, Way Makers stands as a testament to women’s longstanding creative engagement with the deceptively simple practice of walking. Although the first of its kind in some ways, Way Makers joins a small but rich body of popular literary histories of walking that attend to women’s experience. . . . Way Makers offers a welcoming, meditative exploration of the complex and often contradictory meanings that can emerge when women take to the road or the trail. . . . An eminently readable volume. . . . Ultimately, Way Makers is sure to provide scholarly and casual readers alike with a fresh perspective on what it means to move through the world on foot. Andrews has given us an invigorating look at what the literature of women’s walking has to offer, and I hope this volume will inspire others to follow in her footsteps.”

Women's Writing

"Way Makers is a scintillating and exciting collection of women's voices."

Katharine Norbury, author of "The Fish Ladder"

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION
Elizabeth Carter to Catherine Talbot, 1746
Frances Burney, Evelina; or, The History of a Young Lady’s Entrance Into the World (1778)
Ann Yearsley, ‘Clifton Hill’, from Selected Poems (1785)
Helen Maria Williams, Letters Written in France, in the Summer 1790 (1790)
Charlotte Smith, Rural Walks: In Dialogues: Intended for the Use of Young Persons (1795)
Mary Wollstonecraft to William Godwin, 10 September 1796
Dorothy Wordsworth, The Alfoxden Journal (1798)
Sarah Murray, Companion and Useful Guide to the Beauties of Scotland (1799)
Dorothy Wordsworth, The Grasmere Journal (1800)
Jane Austen to Cassandra Austen
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813)
Mary Shelley, History of a Six Weeks’ Tour through a Part of France, Switzerland, Germany and Holland (1817)
Jane Austen, Persuasion (1817)
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818)
Dorothy Wordsworth to William Johnson, 21 October 1818
Sarah Stoddart Hazlitt, The Journal of Sarah Stoddart Hazlitt, 16 May 1822
Ellen Weeton, Miss Weeton’s Journal of a Governess (1825)
Dorothy Wordsworth, ‘Thoughts on My Sick-Bed’ (1832)
Charlotte Brontë to Emily Jane Brontë, 2 September 1843
Harriet Martineau, A Year at Ambleside (1845)
Emily Brontë, ‘Loud Without the Wind was Roaring’, from Poems, by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846)
Christina Rossetti, ‘The Trees’ Counselling’ (1847)
Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (1847)
Harriet Martineau to Mr H. G. Atkinson, 7 November 1847, from Autobiography
‘Often Rebuked, yet Always Back Returning’, from Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey, ed. Charlotte Brontë (1850)
Harriet Martineau, A Complete Guide to the English Lakes (1855)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh (1856)
Charlotte Brontë, The Professor (1857)
Eliza Keary, ‘Through the Wood’, from Little Seal-Skin (1874)
Kate Chopin, ‘Beyond the Bayou’ (1893)
Gwen John to Ursula Tyrwhitt, 3 September 1903, La Réole
Katherine Mansfield, Journal of Katherine Mansfield, Sunday, 16 May 1915
Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway (1925
Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse (1927)
Virginia Woolf, Street Haunting: A London Adventure (1927)
Nan Shepherd, ‘Summit of Coire Etchachan’, from In the Cairngorms (1934)
Virginia Woolf, The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Tuesday, 2 October 1934
Frieda Lawrence, ‘Not I, But the Wind . . .’ (1935)
Sylvia Townsend Warner, Summer Will Show (1936)
Nan Shepherd to Neil Gunn, 14 May 1940
Flora Thompson, Heatherley (1944)
Jessie Kesson, ‘Blaeberry Wood’ (1945)
Jessie Kesson, ‘To Nan Shepherd’ (1945)
Flora Thompson, Lark Rise to Candleford (1945)
Janet Adam Smith, Mountain Holidays (1946)
Anaïs Nin, ‘The Labyrinth’, from Under a Glass Bell (1948)
C. C. Vyvyan, Down the Rhone on Foot (1955)
Eleanor Farjeon, Walking with Edward Thomas (1958)
Simone de Beauvoir, The Prime of Life, trans. Peter Green (1960)
Nan Shepherd, The Living Mountain (1977)
Jenny Nimmo, The Snow Spider (1986)
Alexandra Stewart, Daughters of the Glen (1986)
Muriel Gray, The First Fifty: Munro-Bagging Without A Beard (1991)
Kathleen Jamie, ‘At Point of Ness’, from The Queen of Sheba (1994)
Alice Oswald, ‘Another Westminster Bridge’, from Woods, etc (2005)
Gwyneth Lewis, ‘Imaginary Walks in Istanbul’, from Sparrow Tree (2011)
Cheryl Strayed, Wild: A Journey from Lost to Found (2012)
Linda Cracknell, Doubling Back: Ten Paths Trodden in Memory (2014)
Linda Cracknell, ‘Assynt’s Rare Animals?’ (2015)
Lauren Elkin, Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London (2016)
Melissa Harrison, Rain: Four Walks in English Weather (2016)
Helen Mort, ‘Kinder Scout’, from No Map Could Show Them (2016)
Camille T. Dungy, Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood and History (2017)
Kate Davis, ‘She teaches herself to walk across a limestone landscape’, from The Girl Who Forgets How to Walk (2018)
Katherine May, The Electricity of Every Living Thing (2018)
Raynor Winn, The Salt Path (2018)
Nancy Gaffield, Meridian (2019)
Kathleen Jamie, Surfacing (2019)
Anita Sethi, I Belong Here: A Journey Along the Backbone of Britain (2021)
Sasha Dugdale, ‘The Fall of the Rebel Angels’, from Deformations (2020)
Sarah Moss, The Fell (2021)
Polly Atkin, ‘Unwalking’, from Much With Body (2021)
Sonia Overall, Heavy Time (2021)
Merryn Glover, Of Stone and Sky (2021)

WORKS INCLUDED
PERMISSIONS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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