An authoritative and entertaining account by one of our most talented writers of the courageous and unusual women who have been the backbone of the British Empire and foreign service.

'English ambassadresses are usually on the dotty side and leaving their embassies drives them completely off their rockers' - Nancy Mitford

From the first exploratory expeditions into foreign lands, through the heyday of the British Empire and still today, the foreign service has been shaped and run behind the scenes by the wives of ambassadors and minor civil servants. Accompanying their spouses in the most extraordinary, tough, sometimes terrifying circumstances, they have struggled to bring their civilization with them. Their stories - from ambassadresses downwards - never before told, are a feast of eccentricity, genuine hardship and genuine heroism, and make for a hilarious, compelling and fascinating book.

About the Author

Katie Hickman was brought up in Europe, the Far East and South America, and educated at Oxford University. She has been travelling and writing ever since.

Reviews

Her last book, A Trip to the Light Fantastic, received extraordinarily good reviews:

'The most ambitiously imaginative sort of travel writing'
- Patrick Skene Catling

'Magic is at the heart of Hickman's narrative. Her characters would not seem out of place in the oeuvre of Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Isabel Allende'
- Sunday Times

'Mexico will not have been portrayed more vividly since Graham Greene's The Lawless Roads... Enchanting'
- Geoffrey Moorhouse, Daily Telegraph

Book Information
ISBN 9780006387800
Author Katie Hickman
Format Paperback
Page Count 352
Imprint Flamingo
Publisher HarperCollins Publishers
Weight(grams) 261g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 26mm