author
B. (Bessie) Pullen-Burry
1858–1937
A British novelist and travel writer, she brought readers vivid accounts of Jamaica, Canada, and East Africa, blending storytelling with first-hand observation. Her life also crossed into exploration and the women’s suffrage movement, making her a strikingly wide-ranging figure of her time.
1 Audiobook
Jamaica as it is, 1903
by B. (Bessie) Pullen-Burry
About the author
Born in Sussex in 1858, Bessie Pullen-Burry began her writing career with fiction before turning to travel and descriptive nonfiction. She became known for books including Jamaica as It Is, 1903, From Halifax to Vancouver, and Ethiopia in Exile: Jamaica Revisited, works that drew on journeys across the British Empire and beyond.
She was associated with learned societies including the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Anthropological Institute, and sources describe her as an explorer as well as a suffragist. That combination of literary work, travel, and public engagement gives her writing an unusual energy: it is often observant, place-focused, and shaped by the debates of her era.
Some modern references also note that parts of her public record reflect prejudiced views that are troubling to readers today. Even so, her books remain of interest as historical travel writing, especially for listeners curious about how writers of the early twentieth century described the places they visited.