Women Hunter Books

The women hunter books include the works by the early huntresses who organised their own hunting safaris all over the world, those who hunted with their husbands in Africa and India and those who were expert fox and hound hunters.

Delia Akeley

Delia Julia Akeley (1875 - 1970) was Carl Akeley's first wife. Delia accompanied Carl on expeditions to hunt and retrieve specimens central to the most important displays in the African sections of both the New York and Chicago natural history museums. Delia Akeley became increasingly occupied with a pet monkey called JT who was an extremely bright and jealous primate and she and Carl were divorced in 1923. Delia continued to travel widely in Africa leading her own expeditions and concentrating more on the ethnography of the more reclusive tribes such as the pygmies.

Jungle Portraits by Delia Akeley (1930). Carl Akeley's first wife, recounts her numerous adventures with her husband hunting elephant in Uganda, crocodiles on the Tana River and her tortuous experience rescuing Carl after he was pinned by an elephant.

J T Jr. The Biography Of An African Monkey by Delia Akeley (1936) is a rather scarce book with many photos of J T with his African friends.

Mary Jobe Akeley

Mary Lee Jobe Akeley (1886 - 1966), was Carl Akeley's second wife whom he married in 1924 when he was 60 and she was 38. She was well-known as an explorer and naturalist before her marriage and upon her husband's death, she remained in Africa in charge of the expedition. She was named his successor as adviser to the American Museum of Natural History, at which the Akeley African Hall was named in their honour.

Wilderness Lives Again: Carl Akeley And The Great Adventure by Mary Jobe Akeley (1940) covers Akeley's work in producing museum exhibits of animals and his travels in Africa collecting specimens. This is the book in which Akeley's struggle with a leopard is described - he choked it to death and the picture of the wounded Akeley with the dead leopard is the frontispiece to the book.

Congo Eden: A Comprehensive Portrayal Of The Background And Scientific Aspects Of The Game Sanctuaries Of The Belgian Congo by Mary Jobe Akeley (1950) is a comprehensive portrayal of the historical background and scientific aspects of the great game sanctuaries of the Belgian Congo with the story of a six months pilgrimage throughout that most primitive region in the heart of the African continent.

Rumble Of A Distant Drum: A True Story Of The African Hinterland by Mary Jobe Akeley (1948) is a true story of a 10 year old boy who travelled with the writer during an expedition in the Congo, Uganda and Tangyanika. Included is information on the Watusi and other tribes.

Restless Jungle by Mary Jobe Akeley (1937) is a first-person account of the author's work in Africa during the 1920s and 1930s.

Carl Akeley's Africa by Mary Jobe Akeley (1929) is the account of the Akeley-Eastman-Pomeroy Africa Hall Expedition of the American Museum of Natural History.

Stanley Alpern

Amazons Of Black Sparta: The Women Warriors Of Dahomey by Stanley Alpern (1998). The only thoroughly documented amazons in world history are the women warriors of Dahomy, an eighteenth and nineteenth century Western African kingdom. Once dubbed a small black Sparta, residents of Dahomy shared with the Spartans an intense militarism and sense of collectivism. Moreover, the women of both kingdoms prided themselves on bodies hardened from childhood by rigorous physical exercise. But Spartan women kept in shape to breed male warriors, Dahomean amazons to kill them. Originally a praetorian guard, the Dahomeans developed into a force 6,000 strong and were granted semi-sacred status. They lusted for battle, fighting with fury and valour until the kingdom's final defeat by France in 1892.

Lady Viola Apsley

Lady Viola Emily Mildred Bathurst Apsley (1895 - 1966) was a notable British huntswoman before a serious accident confined her to a wheelchair.

Bridleways Through History by Lady Viola Apsley (1948). Horses and hunting.

The Amateur Settlers by Lord Apsley & Lady Viola Apsley (c.1920) covers their 6 month trip to Ausralia in the Northern Territory and northern Western Australia.

To Whom The Goddess: Hunting And Riding For Women by Lady Viola Apsley with Lady Diana Sheddon (1932)

The Fox-Hunter's Bedside Book by Lady Viola Apsley (1949)

Mrs W W Baillie

Days And Nights Of Shikar by Mrs W W Baillie (1921) is a very good colonial sporting work written from a woman's perspective. Free Ebook

Astrid Bergman Sucksdorf

Tiger In Sight by Astrid Bergman Sucksdorf (1970) is an autobiographical account of a filming expedition to India and her unexpected encounters with man-eating tigers and leopards who were attacking people and cattle in a neighbouring village. The author, an expert markswoman, records events of overnight vigils, the excitement and fulfilment of the hunt and village life in the mountains and jungles of Central India.

Tooni The Elephant Boy by Astrid Bergman Sucksdorf (1971)

Courtney Borden

Adventures In A Man's World: The Initiation Of A Sportsman's Wife by Courtney Borden (1933). The author married John Borden, the boss of the biggest food company in America in 1925 and subsequently joined him on his sporting expeditions in search of a wide variety of quarry. A woman who can shoot straight, grin when she misses, go head over heels down the rapids and bewail only the lost steelhead has proved that sport is by no means only a man's world. Gamebirds, waterfowl, flyfishing, walrus shooting in the Arctic, brown bears in Alaska, polar bears and much else besides.

Joyce Boyd

My Farm In Lion Country by Joyce Boyd (1933) is an account of her farming life on the slopes of Mount Meru, Tanganyika after WW1. Includes considerable big game hunting with chapters 'My First Lion', 'Christmas on Safari' and 'Still on Safari'.

Mary Hastings Bradley

Mary Hastings Bradley (1882 - 1976) was a Chicago-born traveller and author. She was the mother of author Alice Sheldon (James Tiptree Jr). She was a prolific author of mysteries, travel books, short fiction and novels. She married Herbert Bradley in 1910 who was a lawyer, big game hunter and explorer who later helped found the Brookfield Zoo.

Alice In Jungleland by Mary Hastings Bradley (1930) is a classic biographical children's book about (and illustrated by) Alice Sheldon who would later write as the groundbreaking science fiction writer James Tiptree Jr. Much of her childhood was spent in Africa on safari with the famed naturalist Carl Akeley.

Alice In Elephantland by Mary Hastings Bradley (1929) is a rare early Alice B Sheldon (aka James Tiptree Jr.) book, as the lead character in a book written by the famous Science Fiction author's mother and inspired by the family's long visits to Africa and Asia. The illustrations are by Alice.

On The Gorilla Trail by Mary Hastings Bradley (1922) records the events of a 1921 safari with her husband, Herbert Bradley, five-year-old daughter and her friend, the renowned sculptor and taxidermist Carl Akeley. Akeley was searching for gorilla specimens for the African Hall he was in the process of redesigning for the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Well into the twentieth century, this largest of primates was more a figure of myth than of natural history.

Caravans And Cannibals by Mary Hastings Bradley (1926) is about the safaris to Africa the author took with her husband.

Trailing The Tiger by Mary Hastings Bradley (1929).Here the authors is after a tiger and gets one in Sumatra.

Books About Alice B Sheldon

Julie Phillips

James Tiptree Jr: The Double Life Of Alice B Sheldon by Julie Phillips (2006) is an in-depth biography of Alice B Sheldon (1915 - 1987), daughter of Mary Hastings Bradley, who wrote science fiction under the name James Tiptree Jr. for more than a decade before her true identity was revealed.

Fiona Capstick

The Diana Files: The Huntress Traveller Through Historyby Fiona Capstick (2004) was the product of many years' research and is the largely untold story of women and big game hunting.

Between Two Fires by Fiona Capstick (2012). The life and times of Margarete Trappe, who came out to settle in German East Africa in 1907 where she died half a century later. This young woman and her husband, Ulrich, trekked on foot over several weeks with their retinue from near Tanga on the coast to the foothills of Mount Meru, overlooking Mount Kilimanjaro. By 1928, Margarete Trappe had become the first full-time professional huntress in Africa and the preferred guide of the aristocracy of Europe during lengthy big game hunting expeditions. Recent Addition Another biography of Margarete Trappe by Maximilian Von Rogister

Diane Chasseresse

Sporting Sketches by Diane Chasseresse (1890) covers angling, stalking, duck shooting, black-game in the Scottish Highlands.

Gretchen Cron

The Roaring Veldt by Gretchen Cron (1930). Accompanied by her husband Herman, Cron describes several hunting trips to the Serengeti Plains of Tanganyika in the 1920s. She describes exciting hunting encounters with elephant, rhino and lion, with a particularly hair raising account of stalking a bull buffalo dubbed the 'Black Shadow.' There are additional descriptions of hunting leopard and kongoni. Herman Cron battled a severe bout with malaria and the opportune arrival of Denys Finch-Hatton helped save his life.

Kenneth Czech

With Rifle & Petticoat: Women As Big Game Hunters, 1880-1940 by Kenneth Czech (2002). Detailing specific time periods, regions hunted (Africa, Alaska, The Plains) and individual women, Kenneth Czech explores the interesting women who hunted a variety of big game animals around the world.

Isabel De Quintanilla

Isabel De Quintanilla married professional hunter, Tony Sanchez-Arino in 1963 and went to Africa. She became an accomplished big game hunter herself, especially of elephant.

A Thousand Trails Through Africa by Isabel De Quintanilla (2005) is the story of Isabel De Quintanilla who left a privileged life in Valencia in the 1960s and followed the man of her dreams, Tony Sanchez-Arino, to Africa. In spite of extreme conditions and bouts with malaria and Dengue fever, they formed a hugely successful safari business in some of the most remote parts of Africa.

Vivienne De Watteville

Vivienne De Watteville (1900 - 1957) was a British writer and adventurer. In 1923 she and her father started a safari trip through Kenya, Uganda and the Belgian Congo, hunting for trophies for the Natural History Museum in Berne, Switzerland. When her father was killed by a lion, Vivienne De Watteville continued successfully hunting the animals she needed and finished the trip completely alone.

Out In The Blue by Vivienne De Watteville (1927) is her first book in which she describes her experiences on safari.

Speak To The Earth: Wanderings And Reflections Among Elephants And Mountains by Vivienne De Watteville (1937) tells of her photo safari in 1928-29. She spent two months in a hut on Mount Kenya and met the British mountaineers Shipton and Tilman.

Lady Florence Dixie

Lady Florence Caroline Dixie (1855 - 1905), the daughter of the Marquis of Queensbury, was a British traveller, war correspondent, writer, feminist and sportswoman. She travelled and hunted extensively in Patagonia before being appointed as a news correspondent in South Africa, covering the Boer War.

In The Land Of Misfortune by Lady Florence Dixie (1882). In South Africa she spent most of her time astride a horse hunting rather than reporting the war and the text reflects her interest in sport and exotic meals.

Across Patagonia by Lady Florence Dixie (1881). When asked in 1879 why she wanted to travel to such an outlandish place as Patagonia, the author replied without hesitation that she was taking to the saddle in order to flee from the strict confines of polite Victorian society. "Palled with civilization and its surroundings, I wanted to escape to some place where I might be as far removed from them as possible. A longing grows up within one to taste a more vigorous emotion than that afforded."

The Two Castaways: Or Adventures In Patagonia by Lady Florence Dixie (1900) is currently unavailable.

Redeemed In Blood by Lady Florence Dixie (1889)

The Young Castaways: Or The Child Hunters Of Patagonia by Lady Florence Dixie (1890)

Gloriana: Or The Revolution Of 1900 by Lady Florence Dixie (1890) is a utopian reform novel dealing with women's rights, as well as the unification of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales in an Imperial Federation.

Lady Augusta Fane

Chit Chat by Lady Augusta Fane (1926) are reminiscences including two chapters on fox hunting with hounds.

Helen Fischer

Peril Is My Companion by Helen Fischer (1957). Translated from the German by Eleanor Brockett. This is the record of Fischer's photo-safari around East Africa with an excursion to visit the Congo pygmies and details of her earlier life as a big game hunter.

Nora Gardner

Nora Beatrice Blyth Gardner (1866 - 1944) was married to Colonel Alan Coulston Gardner who was a keen big game hunter and whom she always accompanied on safari.

Rifle And Spear With The Rajpoots: Being The Narrative Of a Winter's Travel And Sport In Northern India by Nora Gardner (1895) is an entertaining account of a journey and hunting trip to Srinagar, Islamabad, Chamba, Lahore, Dholpur, Muttra, Baroda, Jaipur, Kotah, Jodpur and other places.

Lady Violet Greville

Ladies In The Field: Sketches Of Sport by Lady Violet Greville (1894) Kindle Version

Agnes Herbert

Agnes Elsie Diana Herbert, nee Thorpe (1880 - 1960) was an English sportswoman, author and traveller. With her cousin, Cecily, she undertook three major hunting expeditions in Somaliland, Alaska and Caucasus.

Two Dianas In Somaliland: The Record Of A Shooting Trip by Agnes Herbert (1908) is the remarkable, amusing and often violent account of the author and her cousin Cecily on a hunting trip in Somaliland, where she herself is mauled by a lion and one of her native guides is killed by a rhino. She relates the difficulties a woman has on a trip from bathing to competition with male sportsmen. "My cousin is a wonderful shot, and I am by no means a duffer with a rifle. As to our courage - well, we could only trust we had sufficient to carry us on through."

Two Dianas In Alaska by Agnes Herbert (1909) is the account of the hunting trip to Alaska made by Miss Herbert and her cousin Cecily. They hunted bears, walruses, sheep and moose. Kindle Version

Casuals In The Caucasus: The Diary Of A Sporting Holiday by Agnes Herbert (1912) is an account of Agnes Herbert's hunt in the Caucasus with her cousin Cecily.

The Elephant by Agnes Herbert (1908) is a novel on the life of an African elephant.

The Life Story Of A Squirrel by Agnes Herbert (1923)

The Life Story Of a Moose by Agnes Herbert (1926) is an account in story form of the great Canadian moose.

The Life Story Of A Lion by Agnes Herbert (1923)

The Isle Of Man by Agnes Herbert (1909) is the history, topography, folklore, fishing, customs and the people of the Isle of Man.

Northumberland by Agnes Herbert (1923) is a celebration of Northumbria, beautifully illustrated by Heaton Cooper's delicate paintings.

The Hot Springs Of New Zealand by Agnes Herbert (1921)

A Girl's Adventures In Korea by Agnes Herbert (1927)

Pam Houston

Women On Hunting: Essays, Fiction And Poetry by Pam Houston (1994) has drawn together a collection of texts that explores territories most often left for men. From the perspectives of both the hunter and the hunted, here are rich and varied works by Margaret Atwood, Anne Beattie, Joyce Carol Oates, Annie Dillard, Louise Erdrich and others.

Mrs Victor Hurst

Hunting, Shooting And Fishing by Mrs Victor Hurst (1953)

Lady Minna Jenkins

Sport And Travel In Both Tibets by Lady Minna Jenkins (1909). The author was one of the only Edwardian-era women who embarked on her own hunting expeditions. Animals hunted include blue sheep, Tibetan argali, gazelles, urial, barrasingha, ibex and markhor.

Mrs E L King

Grace Watkins King (1877 - 1975) was the wife of Minnesota businessman Ernest Leroy King. With her husband, she travelled to Kenya on safari in 1924. She not only shot lions on safari but also shot clays with Annie Oakley.

Hunting Big Game In Africa by Mrs E L King (1926) is an account of her African hunting safari in 1924. Grace King was quite well acquainted with firearms and purchased her heavy rifle from Dr Richard Sutton. They established a base camp on the N'Goro Nderi river where they hunted lion, buffalo and a variety of plains game. Along the Guaso Nyiro, they bagged elephant and hippo.

Mrs Fred Maturin

Edith Emily Money Maturin (b.1865) was born in India and was married to Frederick Harvey Maturin. Following their divorce Edith went to live in South Africa as Mrs Cecil-Porch in 1910.

Adventures Beyond The Zambesi: Of The O'Flaherty, The Insular Miss, The Soldier Man And The Rebel-Woman by Mrs Fred Maturin (1913) is the account of a hunting expedition, with the author making much of her suffragette convictions.

Petticoat Pilgrims On Trek by Mrs Fred Maturin (1909) is a first-person account of travelling across South Africa in 1903-4.

Lucille McConnaughey

Women Afield by Lucille McConnaughey (1987)

Robert S Meikle and M E Meikle

After Big Game: The Story Of An African Holiday by R S and M E Meikle (1915) is an account of travels on the Uganda Railway and an excursion into German East Africa. With a safari consisting of 144 members, the Meikles proceeded to hunt in British East Africa near the Guaso Nyiro. They bagged hartebeest, oryx, rhinoceros, lion, gerenuk and waterbuck. After a bout with dysentery, the party returned to the field where Mrs Meikle relates a variety of camp experiences with a bit of buffalo hunting mixed in. There is a final chapter in the book written by F G Aflalo relating to fishing in the Protectorate. It includes sea-fish at Mombasa, trout in the Aberdares, barbel at the Nile Falls and the giant perch and tigerfish of Lake Albert.

Mrs Stuart Menzies

Amy Charlotte Bewicke Menzies (b.1856) was married to Capt. Stuart Alexander Menzies and was an author of several books.

Women In The Hunting Field by Mrs Stuart Menzies (1913) is a snapshot of pre-war English hunting from the woman's side. This book is really a primer on English hunting in general with a sections on fox, hare and stag hunting.

Sportsmen Parsons In Peace And War by Mrs Stuart Menzies (1920) includes the biographies of hunting clergymen including the Reverend Jack Russell and the Reverend C Kingsley.

Florence H Morden

From The Field Notebook Of Florence Morden by Florence H Morden (1940)

Hilda Murray

Echoes Of Sport by Hilda Murray (1910) Hare, ptarmigan, wildfowl, grouse, partridge, stalking, angling in Scotland and a couple of chapters on hunting. An interesting work by a fine sporting lady.

Marguerite Roby

"Frequently, my bearers became mutinous, and I had to deal with them unaided. One of my boys, however, named Thomas, was very faithful to me, and 1 owe my life to him, for when 1 had a bad attack of fever and my temperature was 107 degrees he saved me from death by persistently pouring cold water over my head after letting down my hair. I was quite unconscious, and had given myself a dose of morphia in the hope that if I was to die I might pass away easily. And I shall never forget the look of joy on Thomas's face when, after a sleep of five days, I opened my eyes. Altogether I had three attacks of fever, and the last was so bad that I had to make my way when I was convalescent from Lake Victoria Nyanza to Mombasa, and thence by steamer to Marseilles."

My Adventures In The Congo by Marguerite Roby (1911) recounts her adventurous trip to Africa, first incognito as a maid to a wealthy couple, then as a bicyclist through the Belgian Congo. She hunted hippopotamus, elephant and buffalo. On more than one occasion she had to face down mutinous porters.

Isabel Savory

Isabel Savory (b.1869) became a famous best-selling author after the hunting expedition she made with friends from Bombay up to Peshawar, to the Khyber Pass into Kashmir and then to the Nigiri Hills.

A Sportswoman In India: Personal Adventures And Experiences Of Travel In Known And Unknown India by Isabel Savory (1900). 'Do not set out on a tiger shoot without being prepared for a great deal of discomfort. Your temper, your personal comforts, will all be trodden under foot, and every annoyance must be borne under circumstances which amount sometimes to purgatory. Unless a woman is physically strong, it would be foolhardiness to spend eight weeks under such conditions'. Free Ebook

Our March Across Southern Morocco by Isabel Savory (1902) is an account of a trip undertaken by two English ladies, without permit or escort, through southern Morocco to Marrakesh.

In The Tail Of The Peacock: Travel And Adventures Of An English Woman In Morocco by Isabel Savory (1903) describes the different places she visited to learn about the culture, the colours, the people, the souks, the beautiful skies and all the things that made Morocco a favorite exotic destination for travellers around the world. Free Project Gutenberg Ebook & Kindle Version

The Romantic Roussillon: In The French Pyrenees by Isabel Savory (1919)

Olive Smythies

Tiger Lady: Adventures In The Indian Jungle by Olive Smythies (1953)

Ten Thousand Miles On Elephants by Olive Smythies (1961) tells the story of her experiences during the many years she and her husband, Evelyn Smythies, spent in India, where they had their home, lived and worked, and shot and fished, amidst some of the most magnificent scenery in the world. Besides India, the author travelled extensively in Burma and Borneo and recalls many of the scenes and events there which interested her most. The author also writes about the years they spent in Nepal.

Mary Zeiss Stange

Woman The Hunter by Mary Zeiss Stange (1997). Exploring how women and men relate to nature and violence, Mary Zeiss Stange demonstrates how false assumptions abut women and about hunting permeate contemporary thought. Her book is a profound critique of our society's evasion of issues that make us uncomfortable, and it culminates in a surprising claim: that only by appreciating the value of hunting can we come to understand what it means to be human.

Heart Shots: Women Write About Hunting by Mary Zeiss Stange (2003) is an interesting anthology of pieces on big game hunting and deer shooting by a wide range of women writers, largely from the twentieth century. Bear, deer, elk and other quarry in North America, trapping, shooting on the Nile, lots of big game hunting in various parts of Africa, lions, tigers, ducks, geese and shooting over marshes, antelope, coyote shooting and a lot else besides.

Gun Women: Firearms And Feminism In Contemporary America by Mary Zeiss Stange (2000) paints a precise and unflinching account of America's gun women.

Grace Thompson-Seton

Grace Gallatin Thompson-Seton (1872 - 1959) was a wealthy socialite, pioneer traveller, big game hunter, founder of a women's writers club, a first rank suffragette and a leading fund raiser for War Bonds in WWI. She was the first wife of the naturalist and illustrator Ernest Thompson-Seton.

A Woman Tenderfoot by Grace Thompson-Seton (1900) is the account of her transformation from a highly refined life of the urban upper class to become one of the outstanding explorers of her age. Kindle Version

Yes, Lady Saheb: A Woman's Adventurings In Mysterious India by Grace Thompson-Seton (1925). Tiger hunts in the jungle, intimate talks with the awakening women of the East, the inner meaning and probable outcome of the Ghandi movement, the India of temple, of jungle, of the brilliant social life of the English. This distinguished lady adventurer was a religious seeker, big game hunter and author. She descibes adventures in the India of the twenties, rogue elephants, religious experience and more.

Nimrod's Wife by Grace Thompson-Seton (1907) is an account of hunting and other adventures with her husband Ernest Thompson-Seton, in the Rockies, the Sierras, on the Rosebud Sioux reservation and elsewhere.

Magic Waters: Through The Wilds Of Matto Grosso And Beyond by Grace Thompson-Seton (1933)

Poison Arrows: Strange Journey With An Opium Dreamer Annam, Cambodia, Siam And The Lotos Isle Of Bali by Grace Thompson-Seton (1938) is a first-person adventure written on her solo travel adventure through Indo-China.

Chinese Lanterns by Grace Thompson-Seton (1924) is a remarkable first-hand account of 1920's civil war-torn China.

Mrs Richard Tyacke

How I Shot My Bears: Or Two Years' Tent Life In Kullu And Lahoul by Mrs Richard Tyacke (1893)

Gabrielle M Vassal

Gabrielle Maud Vassal (1880 - 1959) was the British wife of a French army doctor, Joseph Jean Vassal, and travelled with her husband first to SE Asia then to Gabon and the Congo. She was also a keen naturalist, who contributed bird and mammal specimens from Africa and Southeast Asia to the Natural History Museum in London. Several animals, including the yellow-cheeked crested gibbon, Nomascus gabriellae, were named after her.

Life In French Congo by Gabrielle Vassal (1925) is an account of their medical work among the natives and in Brazzaville. They then proceeded into the interior to do a bit of big game hunting, Mrs Vassal bagging a buffalo. There are also several photos of the game that her husband collected.

Three Years In Vietnam 1907-1910: Medicine, Chams And Tribesmen In Nhatrang And Surroundings by Gabrielle Vassal (1910) are the author's diaries which cover a great number of aspects of the life of Vietnamese, Cham and hill tribe people around Nhatrang as well as that of the life of a French medical doctor and his wife in colonial Vietnam. Gabrielle Vassal had a good eye for the position of women and for daily household life and used her keen sense of observation and inquiry to analyze what she saw.

On And Off Duty In Annam by Gabrielle Vassal (1910) covers her first impressions of French Indo-China, first glimpse of the Annamese, Saigon, the tropics and European life in Saigon. Life in an Annamese fishing village, Nha Trang, fighting with the insects, native habits, the market and daily routine.