‘The serpent and the dove’: Emily lowe, an unprotected victorian traveller in no need of protection

Abstract

This article centres on the figure of Emily Lowe, an obscure Victorian traveller, and on her book Unprotected Females in Sicily (1859). Far from being just one more eccentric woman traveller, Lowe displayed highly ambivalent behaviour, alternatively adopting a traditional feminine attitude and an extremely transgressive conduct epitomized in the concept of her ‘unprotectedness’. The intentional ambiguity of her narrative persona is analysed in Foucauldian terms, according to Sara Mills’ recent study of women's travel writing. Lowe's text is not read exclusively as a case of undeservedly forgotten protofeminism, but as a revealing example of the mechanisms of the production and reception of travel literature by women in Victorian society.