Travelling Wives and Unprotected Women: Representing the Female Traveller in Tom Taylor’s mid-Victorian Comedies (1860)

Abstract

Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, Britain would boast of an economic and social prosperity, improving both national and international transport and tourism. However, certain social issues such as the Woman Question, or the altercations in the colonies raised questions about the Empire’s stability. In London, galleries, museums, and theatrical stages, would reproduce images of the colonies to satisfy the people’s appetite for the foreign. In these, mobile women were usually reduced to stereotypical characters. Thus, we can find a clear categorization of the female traveller: on the one hand, the faithful wife who accompanies her husband, and, on the other, the wild, undomesticated female (Ferrús 19). This article scrutinises women’s position and representation as travellers during the Victorian period. With this purpose in mind, we analyse two comedies written by English playwright Tom Taylor (1817-1880) for London’s stages: The Overland Route (Haymarket 23 February 1860) and Up at the Hills (St. James’s Theatre 22 October 1860). The plays’ setting (colonial India) offers us the opportunity to further discuss gender ideology and its relationship with travel during the mid-Victorian period.