Part wild-walk, part memoir, Windswept follows an exhilarating journey from Abbs's isolated, car-less childhood to her walking the remote paths trodden by extraordinary women, including Georgia O'Keeffe in the empty plains of Texas and New Mexico, Nan Shepherd in the mountains of Scotland, Gwen John following the Garonne, Simone de Beauvoir in the mountains and forests of France and Daphne du Maurier along the River Rhone.With an 'experimental' upbringing in the Welsh countryside that involved walking everywhere and living according to the principles of the philosopher Rousseau, it is no surprise that Annabel developed a passion for the great outdoors and for remedying the oversights of a massively male-dominated culture.įrustrated that no one, even renowned (male) philosophers, included women in the narrative of the outdoors, Annabel immersed herself in forgotten female-authored guidebooks and the diaries and letter papers of some of our most significant cultural figures.
In this powerful and deeply inspiring book, Annabel Abbs uncovers women who refused to conform, who recognised a biological, emotional and artistic need for wilderness, water and desert - and who took the courageous step of walking unpeopled and often forbidding landscapes. But not all women did as they were told, despite the dangers history reveals women for whom rural walking became inspiration, consolation and liberation. I felt as though I were being lifted, carried up to peaks' Charlotte Peacock, author of Into the Mountain: A Life of Nan Shepherd 'A beautiful and meditative memoir' Publishers Weekly For centuries, the wilds have been male territory, while women sat safely confined at home. 'Moving and memorable' Virginia Nicholson, author of How Was It for You? 'A triumph. The story of extraordinary women who lost their way - their sense of self, their identity, their freedom - and found it again through walking in the wild.
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