Fanny Parkes

Fanny Parks (* 1794, † 1875; Fanny Parkes) was an English travel writer.

Life and work

Lived as the daughter of an army officer and wife of a government official Fanny Parks 24 years ( 1822-1846 ) in Allahabad / India and traveled through during this time the sub-continent on horseback and in the own ship criss-cross, because, as she said, her husband " in the Indian winter was unbearable ". After returning to the home ( 1850) she published originally intended for her mother travel diary with sketches.

The former beauty, which was, however, referred to in 1835 as " enormously fat " (Emily Eden ), although regarded as lively, but also as an eccentric. She played the sitar, spoke and wrote Urdu, the Persian -influenced language of North India, and was the British rule over critical.

During her visit to the British officer William Henry Sleeman in Jabalpur / Madhya Pradesh, India, in 1830 they witnessed how they discovered the bodies of victims Thug in the fountain and how the interrogations and executions expired. She visited in 1844 and the temple of the Thugs in Mirzapur. In addition, they drew on the spot sketches and annotated them.

Her book, which earned her a literary celebrity, is "a feast of anecdotes, stories, descriptions and insights " and is among other things a vivid insight into the men normally closed world of Indian women; it is therefore also a classic of women's literature.