Mary Elizabeth Barber (1818-1899), born in Britain, arrived in the Cape
Colony in 1820 where she spent the rest of her life as a rolling stone,
as she lived in and near Grahamstown, the diamond and gold fields,
Pietermaritzburg, Malvern near Durban and on various farms in the
eastern part of the Cape Colony. She has been perceived as 'the most
advanced woman of her time', yet her legacy has attracted relatively
little attention. She was the first woman ornithologist in South Africa,
one of the first who propagated Darwin's theory of evolution, an early
archaeologist, keen botanist and interested lepidopterist. In her
scientific writing, she propagated a new gender order; positioned
herself as a feminist avant la lettre without relying on difference
models and at the same time made use of genuinely racist argumentation.
This is the first publication of her edited scientific correspondence.
The letters - transcribed by Alan Cohen, who has written a number of
biographical articles on Barber and her brothers - are primarily
addressed to the entomologist Roland Trimen, the director of the Royal
Botanic Gardens Kew, London. Today, the letters are housed at the Royal
Entomological Society in St Albans. This book also includes a critical
introduction by historian Tanja Hammel who has published a number of
articles and is about to publish a monograph on Mary Elizabeth Barber.
