Voyage in the Sunbeamyacht: the image of Japan in Anna Brassey’s book
Pages: 46-55 | DOI: 10.37724/RSU.2026.91.2.005 | UDK: 94(520):821.111-992.09«18»
Abolmasov V.V.
Ryazan State University named for S. Yesenin
Malchikova S.P.
Smolensk State Medical University
Abstract
The article analyzes the image of Japan in the travelogue of the British writer Anna Brassey A Voyage in the “Sunbeam” our home on the ocean for eleven months. (1878). Based on a detailed study of the chapters describing the author’s stay in the Land of the Rising Sun in 1877, we describe the peculiarities of the perception of Japanese reality by a representative of the Victorian elite in the context of British-Japanese relations in the second half of the 19th century. In Lady Brassey’s work one can trace the contradiction characteristic of the European consciousness of the 19th century between the established Orientalist image of the “old” exotic Japan and the new modernizing state. The traveler notes ongoing rapid Westernization, but at the same time consciously seeks and appreciates traces of “authentic Japan,” corresponding to the stereotypical image that had developed in Europe. The Baroness notices the honesty and friendliness of Japanese people, but at the same time emphasizes their “wild” curiosity and their persisting “barbaric” customs from her European point of view. The results of the study are meant to expand and update knowledge about British-Japanese cultural contacts in the second half of the 19th century, the mechanisms of formation and transmission of Orientalist images, as well as to show the specificity of the female view of a representative of the Victorian era on the processes of modernization in East Asia.
Keywords: Anna Brassey, Lady Brassey, Japan, Great Britain, travelogue, travel literature
Funding:
none
References
1. Брассей А. Вокруг света в 11 месяцев. Путевые записки. — М. : изд. книготорговца М. В. Клюкина, 1899. — 180 с.
2. Blain V., Clements P., Grundy I. The Feminist companion to literature in English: women writers from the Middle Ages to the present. — New Haven ; L. : Yale University Press, 1990. — 1231 р.
3. Brassey A. The last voyage, to India and Australia, in the «Sunbeam». — L. : Longmans, Green and Co, 1889. — 490 р.
4. Brassey A. Voyage in the «Sunbeam» our home on the ocean for eleven months. — Chicago : Belford, Clarke & Co, 1881. — 511 р.
5. Cantoni L. Annie Brassey’s Voyages // Hot off the Press. — URL : https://blog.pgdp.net/2012/01/15/annie-brasseys-voyages/ (дата обращения: 10.11.2025).
6. Dictionary of Literary Biography. British travel writers, 1837–1875 / Ed. by B. Brothers, J. M. Gergits. — Detroit : Gale Research Inc., 1996. —Vol. 166. — 437 p.
7. Heffernan T. Veiled Figures: Women, Modernity, and the Spectres of Orientalism. — Toronto : University of Toronto Press, 2016. — 240 р.
8. Marshall E.H. Dictionary of National Biography. Supplement. — Vol. 1 : Abbott — Childers. — L. : Smith, Elder & Co., 1901. — 430 р.
9. Micklewright N. A Victorian traveler in the Middle East: the photography and travel writing of Annie Lady Brassey. — Abingdon : Routledge, 2003. — 256 р.
10. Robinson-Tomsett E. Women, Travel and Identity: Journeys by Rail and Sea, 1870–1940. — Manchester : Manchester University Press, 2013. — 256 р.
11. The Illustrated London News. 1887. Oct. 22.