No Country for a Woman: The Adventurous Life of Lady Dorothy Mills, Explorer and Writer

Lady Dorothy ’Dolly’ Mills was a petite figure with a big personality, born in 1889 into the political and literary Walpole family. When she married a clever but poor army captain, her father disinherited her. Defying her background and the expectations of her sex, she became a renowned explorer in West Africa - she was the first English woman in Timbuktu - and beyond, travelling deep into Venezeuela and Asia where only men had gone before. Dolly wrote acclaimed travel books illuminating remote places and peoples and describing history in the making. By the 1930s she was the best-known female explorer of the day, appearing on platforms and in books with prominent men. She was elected an early female Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society, and on her death in 1959 left a bequest for women explorers. A feminist with unorthodox views which cost her her marriage, Dolly also wrote bold novels and incisive features for women. Despite life-changing challenges, she never lost her love of donning a glamorous frock and downing a cocktail.

Jane Dismore is a biographer and history writer. Her books include Tangled Souls: Love and Scandal among the Victorian Aristocracy; Princess: The Early Life of Queen Elizabeth II (a source for the ITV and PBS documentary Our Queen at War); and Duchesses: Living in 21st Century Britain, the first book to examine the lives of today’s non-royal duchesses. She writes features for a wide range of publications and has appeared on television, radio and in podcasts. Jane is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a member of the Society of Authors, the Biographers’ Club and the Biographers International Organisation. A former teacher and practising solicitor, she lives in Hertfordshire.