IONIDES, Helen Euphrosyne; Mildred Martineau; Agathoniki Sabina Craies.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Expansive collection of letters written during two tours of East Asia. An unpublished archive of transcribed letters home recording two Edwardian grand tours of East Asia by three women - chiefly Helen Euphrosyne "Lallie" Ionides, with Mildred Martineau in 1908 and her niece Sissie Craies in 1910. Drawn from Ionides family papers and surviving in eight uniformly rebound volumes (c. 1700 pages), it preserves candid, often witty accounts of travel, society, art-collecting, and daily life, illustrated with photographs and sketches. No other copies are known.The 1908 journey traces Ionides and Martineau from England via Suez to Ceylon, China, and Japan, mixing sharp social observation with vivid responses to landscape, food, politics, and art. They moved easily between colonial society and street life, visiting Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, and Kyoto, noting both hospitality and anti-foreign tensions on the eve of revolution, and delighting in temples, tombs, and museums. Their letters combine humour, fatigue, and aesthetic judgement, sharply at odds with the decorum of published travel writing.In 1910 Ionides returned with Craies, travelling via the Trans-Siberian Railway and spending extended time in Beijing and Japan. These volumes are even more detailed, recording expatriate society, collecting frustrations, political unease before the fall of the Qing, natural disasters, and moments of farce and intimacy. Craies's prolific photography adds a strikingly informal visual record

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