The principal mass of materials for this Biography was placed in my hands last summer by the Rev. W. F. Tucker Hamilton, nephew of Charlotte Maria Tucker (A. L. O. E.), and since then many other relatives or friends, both in England and in India, have contributed their share of help, either in the way of written recollections or of correspondence. A paucity of materials exists as to the early part of the life; but in later years the difficulty is of a precisely opposite description, arising from a superabundance of details. Hundreds of letters, more or less interesting in themselves, have had to be put ruthlessly aside, to make room for others of greater interest. From first to last the long series between Charlotte Tucker and her own especial sister-friend, Mrs. Hamilton, takes precedence of all other letters in point of freedom, naturalness, and simplicity. The perfect trust and unshadowed devotion which subsisted between these two form a rare and beautiful picture. It has seemed to me, and it may seem to others, that the main question in the Life of Miss Tucker is, not so[iv] much what she did here or there, in England or in India, as what she was. Many a discussion has taken place, and doubtless will again take place, as to the wisdom of her modes of Missionary work, and as to the degree of success or non-success which attended her labours. I have endeavoured to give fairly certain opposite views upon this question, even while strongly impressed with the conviction that no human being is capable of judging with respect to the worth of work done in his own age and generation. Subtle consequences, working below the surface, are often far more weighty, far more lasting, than the most approved 'results' following immediately upon certain efforts,—results which are, not seldom, found after a while to be of the nature of mere froth. Nothing can be more unprofitable, usually, than the task of endeavouring to 'count conversions.

Step into the booth. Check your judgments at the curtain. Close your eyes. Listen: you can hear the voices of the visitors who sat here before you: some of the most twisted, drug-addled, deviant, lonely, lost, brilliant characters ever to be caught on film. What do you have to offer the booth?

This accessible and unusually wide-ranging book is essential reading for anyone interested in postcolonial and African American women's writing. It provides a valuable gender and culture inflected critical introduction to well established women writers: Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Margaret Atwood, Suniti Namjoshi, Bessie Head, and others from the U.S.A., India, Africa, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and introduces emergent writers from South East Asia, Cyprus and Oceania. Engaging with and clarifying contested critical areas of feminism and the postcolonial; exploring historical background and cultural context, economic, political, and psychoanalytic influences on gendered experience, it provides a cohesive discussion of key issues such as cultural and gendered identity, motherhood, mothertongue, language, relationships, women's economic constraints and sexual politics.

Alexander and Janet Schaw, Scottish siblings, began a journey in 1774 that would take them from Edinburgh to the Caribbean Islands and then to America. Part of the early wave of Scottish colonization, the pair visited family and friends who had already established themselves in the colonies. ""Journal of a Lady of Quality"" is Janet Schaw's account of this voyage through letters to a friend in Scotland. The letters describe the sights, scenery, and social life she encountered, but they also reveal the political atmosphere of an America on the verge of revolution. Stephen Carl Arch provides a new introduction for this Bison Books edition.