Korea and Her Neighbors

Isabella L. Bird arrived in Korea in 1894, at the precise moment the country was about to be torn apart. A celebrated explorer and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, Bird undertook daring journeys through the Korean interior, documenting a nation the West barely understood, its mountain temples, rural villages, and ancient customs before modernity reshaped them. She witnessed Japan's bloody occupation, fled as the First Sino-Japanese War erupted on Korean soil, and returned to find Queen Min assassinated and King Gojong reduced to a puppet. Bird's extraordinary access to the royal court gives this travelogue an intimacy rare for Western accounts of the era. The 'Hermit Kingdom' opens itself to her, and readers are granted passage into a world on the brink of erasure.