author
Lillias H. (Lillias Horton) Underwood
b. 1851
A pioneering American doctor and missionary, she spent decades in Korea caring for patients and writing vividly about daily life there. Her books blend first-hand observation with a strong sense of purpose and adventure.
1 Audiobook
Fifteen Years Among the Top-Knots; Or, Life in Korea
by Lillias H. (Lillias Horton) Underwood
About the author
Born in Albany, New York, in 1851, she trained as a physician and earned her medical degree in Chicago before leaving for Korea in 1888 as a Presbyterian medical missionary. She arrived at a time when Western women doctors were especially important because many Korean women could not easily be treated by men.
Soon after reaching Korea, she married missionary Horace Grant Underwood, and the two became part of the early Protestant mission community in the country. Alongside her medical work, she traveled widely, taught, and helped build institutions during a period of major change in Korean history.
She is also remembered as a writer. Her best-known book, Fifteen Years Among the Top-Knots; Or, Life in Korea, draws on her own experiences to describe Korean society, customs, and missionary life for English-language readers, and she later wrote Underwood of Korea, a biography of her husband. She died in Seoul in 1921.