Butterflies and Late Loves: The Further Travels and Adventures of a Victorian Lady

by Margaret Fountaine

Sm Quarto, 1987, PP., Sequel To Love Among The Butterflies; The Further Travels And Adventures Of A Victorian Lady

Genres: Diary, Nonfiction, Travel, Biography

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Margaret Elizabeth Fountaine, a Victorian lepidopterist and diarist, was an accomplished natural history illustrator. She had a great love and knowledge of butterflies, travelling and collecting extensively through Europe, South Africa, India, Tibet, America, Australia and the West Indies, publishing numerous papers on her work. She raised many of the butterflies from eggs or caterpillars, producing specimens of great quality, 22,000 of which are housed at the Norwich Castle Museum and known as the Fountaine-Neimy Collection. Her four sketch books of butterfly life-cycles are held at the Natural History Museum in London.

Excerpted from Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Rebecca]

I admit I haven't read the first part (since it was this one I came across at a used book-sale), but there is a long introduction, that tells what happened in the first volume so you are well prepared for the continued diaries - not diaries in the usual sense, Miss Fountaine wrote a yearly summary (on April 15th).

Some passages are quite interesting, others more boring - and I would have loved to see some illustrations. There are several references to photos which existed with the diary and it would have been great if at least some of them had been included too (maybe there are in other editions, but not in my hard-back copy - just one just at the beginning which I'm guessing is of Miss Fountaine and Charles, though there is no text that says whether it is or not). These diary fragments can only tell so much...

[Goldenwattle]

An enjoyable read, but much the same as the previous book. Margaret Fountaine lived a very interesting life.

[Phil]

2.5 stars rounded up to 3.

I was a bit disappointed by this book. I've read a number of diaries by Victorian lady explorers and Fountaine's writing doesn't compare well with most of them. The lack of photographs and illustrations in the book is also a bit disappointing - we are given one (uncaptioned) frontispiece photograph and that's it.

A large part of Fountaine's diaries are devoted to her various love affairs, including her long-term relationship with her Syrian servant Khalil/Charles who became her live-in lover. I suspect it's this aspect that may be responsible for not one but TWO volumes of her diaries being published, because otherwise, they are really not that interesting. Other people seem to have enjoyed this aspect, but I found the endless lies and deceit involved in hiding the relationship from her friends and the contempt shown toward Khalil's legal wife rather distasteful. Not to mention the rather juvenile gushings over her various romances.

[Susan Barton]

The second book in the life and loves of Miss Margaret Fontain. A wonderful insite into the life of a very independent Victorian lepidopterist, not a typical Victorian spinster

[Emily]

So lovely to have finally read the follow up to Love Among the Butterflies. Margaret was such an endearing and characterful journal writer, and inspiring traveller