Ten top books about women in the British empire

Stephen Taylor is a writer of biography, history and travel. He has an enduring connection with Africa, where he was born and which provided the setting for his first four book, but in recent years he has turned to people and events from the Georgian age. These themes come together in his latest book, the first comprehensive life of Lady Anne Barnard.

One of Taylor's top ten books about women in the British empire, as shared at the Guardian:

Out of Africa by Karen Blixen

She had a farm in Africa, in the Ngong Hills, and wrote about that landscape, its people and wildlife with a passion and lyricism that seem a world away from a decadent colonial Kenya. The reality is that her aristocratic Swedish husband could have stepped straight out of White Mischief and her lover, Denys Finch-Hatton, was forever taking to the air. But in Blixen’s Africa, beauty prevails.

Read about another book on the list.

Out of Africa is among Amelia Schonbek's four riveting nonfiction adventure books and Helena Frith Powell's top five books on glamour.

--Marshal Zeringue