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‘When I was young, I travelled by mistake, but now I do it on purpose’: the Worlds of Stella Benson

Research Output:
Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding
Chapter
 Peer-review

Sustainable Development Goals

  • SDG 5 - Gender Equality
    SDG 5 Gender Equality

Abstract

This essay considers Stella Benson's collection of travel essays published as Worlds Within Worlds. I discuss Benson's place within literary history. There is a particular emphasis on three overarching themes: Benson’s views about tourism and travel; the role of the traveller and their impact (or, often, lack of impact) on existing cultures; and Benson’s narrative style and use of humour. In Love & Money: Writing, Reading, Travelling 1969-1987, Jonathan Rabat argues that ‘[m]emory … is always telling stories to itself, filling experience in narrative form. It feeds irrelevancies to the shredder, enlarges on crucial details, makes links and patterns, find symbols, constructs plots.’ This notion of ‘telling stories’, and of the fictional ‘I’ even in apparently autobiographical travel writing is one identified by Susan Bassnett who suggests that ‘[m]any of the works by women travellers are self-conscious fictions, and the persona who emerges from the paper is as much a character as a woman in a novel’. The forty-six sketches in Worlds Within Worlds are often narrated by a version of Stella Benson who enjoys the trials and tribulations that she encounters, told with a sense of self-deprecating humour. However, the reality of the often-dangerous situations in which she finds herself is never far beneath a deliberate carapace of irony as Benson ‘finds symbols, constructs plots’ and weaves together a fascinating portrayal of her life and her travels, seeking to find a sense of place and space for herself in a complex world.

Publication Information

Output type

Research Output:
Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding
Chapter
 Peer-review

Original language

English

Publication milestones

  • Accepted/In press - 14/06/2026

Publication status

Accepted/In press - 14/06/2026

Publisher

Edinburgh University Press, United Kingdom

ISBN (Print)

9781399561709

ISBN (Electronic)

9781399561723, 9781399561716

Chapter Number

11

Host publication title

The Edinburgh Companion to Place and Space in Interwar Women's Writing in English

Host publication editors

  • Nicola Darwood
  • Nick Turner

Access to documents

‘When I was young, I travelled by mistake, but now I do it on purpose’_The Worlds of Stella Benson
Accepted author manuscript, 276.16 KB
Access to file: Embargo ends 14/06/2029

Link

Handle.net

Persistent link