author
Lady Lucie Duff Gordon
1821–1869
A lively Victorian travel writer and translator, she is best remembered for the letters she wrote from Egypt, where sharp observation and real sympathy bring everyday life vividly into view.
2 Audiobooks
Letters from Egypt
by Lady Lucie Duff Gordon
Letters from the Cape
by Lady Lucie Duff Gordon
About the author
Born Lucie Austin in London in 1821, she was the daughter of writer and translator Sarah Austin and jurist John Austin. She grew up in an unusually literary world, became fluent in German, and later published both original works and translations under the name Lucie Gordon.
Ill health shaped much of her adult life and travels. After time in South Africa, she went to Egypt in the 1860s, where her letters home became the basis of Letters from Egypt, 1863–1865, the book for which she is best known. Readers have valued these writings for their warmth, intelligence, and close attention to the people and places around her.
She died in 1869, but her writing has lasted because it feels personal as well as observant: part travel narrative, part intimate correspondence, and full of curiosity about the world.