'Sharply observed, snappily written and thoroughly researched, She Merchants provides a fabulous panorama of a largely ignored area of social history. Katie Hickman successfully challenges the stereotype of the snobbish, matron-like memsahib by deploying a riveting gallery of powerful and often eccentric women ranging from stowaways and runaways through courtesans and society beauties to Generals' feisty wives and Viceroys' waspish sisters. It is full of surprises and new material and completely engaging from beginning to end' William Dalrymple
The first British women to set foot in India did so in the very early seventeenth century, two and a half centuries before the Raj.
Women made their way to India for exactly the same reasons men did - to carve out a better life for themselves. In the early days, India was a place where the slates of 'blotted pedigrees' were wiped clean; bankrupts given a chance to make good; a taste for adventure satisfied - for women. They went and worked as milliners, bakers, dress-makers, actresses, portrait painters, maids, shop-keepers, governesses, teachers, boarding house proprietors, midwives, nurses, missionaries, doctors, geologists, plant-collectors, writers, travellers, and - most surprising of all - traders.
As wives, courtesans and she-merchants, these tough adventuring women were every bit as intrepid
Author Biography
Katie Hickman is the author of eight books, including two bestselling works of non-fiction, Daughters of Britannia - in the Sunday Times bestseller lists for ten months and a twenty part series for BBC Radio 4 - and Courtesans. She has also written a trilogy of historical novels - The Aviary Gate, The Pindar Diamond and The House of Bishopgate - which have been translated into twenty languages. Her other books include two highly acclaimed travel books, including Travels with a Mexican Circus which was shortlisted for the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award.
Born into a diplomatic family, she had a peripatetic childhood, growing up in Spain, Ireland, Singapore and South America; she has two children and lives in London.
