Parrot Pie for Breakfast: An Anthology of Women Pioneers

There is nothing quite like parrot pie for breakfast. First one must catch one’s parrot, of course, and build the hearth to bake it, but that is all in a day’s work for the woman pioneer. This riveting anthology tells the story of over 100 such women spanning the age of Empire from the early seventeenth century to the early twentieth. Almost half of them are settlers in North America and Canada, a quarter in Africa, many in Australasia and India, and the rest scattered around the globe from Egypt to Jamaica, Sarawak to Samoa, and many points inbetween. From the lowliest kitchen skivvy to ambassadors’ wives, this book celebrates the emigrants who settled the wildernesses of the world in search of new and better lives. Many were lured abroad by the promise of work or fortune; some went because imperial duty called, while for others it was a most unfeminine lust for adventure that drew them away. But all faced challenges in their homes from home that were to test to the limit their spirits, their resourcefulness, even their survival.

Jane Robinson was born in Edinburgh and brought up in North Yorkshire. After graduating from Somerville College, Oxford, he joined a firm of antiquarian book dealers specializing in travel, later leaving to pursue a writing career. She lives near Oxford with her husband and two sons. This is her fourth book.