Book report A voyager Out

A detailed Summary of Book report A voyager Out

Frank, Katherine. A Voyager Out: The Life of Mary Kingsley. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1986

Katherine Frank's novel A Voyager Out tells the life story of Mary Kingsley. She talks of her childhood, her young adult life, and her traveling life. She wanted to tell the world what this woman explorer did for Africa. Mary Kingsley had a famous family, many of whom were writers. Mary herself wrote two books. In her books however, she leaves out a lot about her life. A lot of what Katherine Frank had discovered came from Mary's letters to friends while traveling. Some people who were the recipients of her letters found it odd that she put so much into her correspondences. In one case, she wrote a ten-page letter to a friend. His response to her was that she was wasting many of her good stories that could be published on a letter. Her response was to write him a six-page letter. She loved writing. She also loved her voyages to Africa.

Part of Mary Kingsley's reason for loving her travel abroad came from her childhood life. Mary was born the daughter of a high-class man and his cook. George Kingsley was a writer and came from a family of writers. He did not produce much however. He left a lot of his works unfi

One of Mary's final letters never got mailed to its recipient. The letter told of "the stench, the washings, the enemas, the bedpans, and blood" (295) that she had to deal with every day. Those were the things that Mary's entire life consisted of. She began her life by taking care of her ill mother, crusaded all of her life by helping Africans and British who were overcome by sicknesses found in Africa, and then later died from being surrounded by diseases all of her life. She always took care of others, never worrying about herself. One day she began to feel the same symptoms that she had for so many years treated. She tried to keep silent, not wanting anyone to see her weakness. Finally, it was impossible to hide the fact that she was sick.

Mary did a great deal of thing that should be looked up to and respected. I do respect this woman that I have never had the chance to meet. The things she did were extremely courageous. She put other people's lives ahead of hers. Never once did she stop and say, "This could be dangerous to me." She was always willing to go above and beyond. It gives me a great example of a way to lead a selfless life. I am not saying that I want to go to the extremes that Mary did, but I think that I could definitely learn a lot about helping others by following her lead. We all can. Mary crusaded to help those who did not get help from others. She was a strong woman who did what she believed was right, not what others thought was right. She was a pilgrim of some sorts. She began what others eventually followed. Because of her, many others were willing to help those in need.

Now for the opinion part. The book was great. Mary Kingsley was an extremely interesting woman. She did many great things for those who not many wanted to help. However, the book was not easy to read. The book was rather repetitive. Mary was born, helped the sick, went to Africa, helped the sick, people died, she left Africa, went back to Africa, helped the sick, people died, left Africa, went back to Africa, helped the sick... you get the point. It was a little bit difficult for me to pick out the important details to share with the class in this report. I did not want to bore the class with the same thing over and over. Yes, I realize that Mary led an extremely wonderful life, and therefore all of the details of her life should be considered important. However, some of them were rather boring.

In general I am glad that I read this book, although I am extremely glad that I am done with it. If anyone else would like to read it, great! I would encourage you to go out and gain knowledge of what this woman did to help the sick in Africa. It is a truly touching story. If, on the other hand, you have other things to do, other tests to study for, or parties to go to, I would suggest doing that first.

nished, and many others unstarted. Because he did not do much in his lifetime, it has been said that his greatest gift to the world was his daughter. Her mother, Mary Bailey, was the innkeeper's daughter. Four days after her father and mother were married, Mary Kingsley was born. If her father had not married her mother, Mary would have been bastard child of a destitute domestic. Mary would have only been able to lead a life of servitude herself. Oddly enough though, most of her young life was lead in servitude.

While in Christianborg Mary discovered just how bad the white man's death toll was. She was being given a tour of the Christianborg cemetery and she noted two wooden hoods covering empty graves. When she asked what these were for, she was told that they always had two graves dug ready for the white man to die. She was rather shocked at this revelation, and did not at first believe the necessity for these graves. The tour guide told her that just a few days past two men died before noon and then two more died later on in the evening. Mary wrote about this in her books. She w

Some common words found in the essay are:
Mary Charley, Mary Kingsley, Mary Bailey, Africa Africa, Christianborg Mary, Charles Charley, Mary Mary, African African, Africans British, Mary England, mary kingsley, mary wrote, mary bailey, mother mary, helped sick, africa helped sick, taking care, reading book, africa helped, wrote books, people died, mary wrote books, helped sick people, died left africa, people died left,

Approximate Word count = 3758
Approximate Pages = 15 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels