Windswept: Why Women Walk by Annabel Abbs – A review and a look at Clara Vyvyan

This fascinating memoir tells the stories of some extraordinary women who chose to find their sense of self, their identity, and their freedom by walking.  But I mean really walking, in rugged and forbidding landscapes, and often in hostile circumstances.  They are quite an unexpected combination of women, each very different from the others and with lives that seldom if ever crossed, but all with an abiding desire to walk.  The women discussed are Freida Lawrence, the wife of D.H. Lawrence, Gwen John, Nan Shepherd, Simone de Beauvoir, Georgia O'Keeffe, Emma Gatewood, Clara Vyvyan and Daphne du Maurier.

To read more about this book, and to find out more about Clara Vyvyan, please go to our Book and Plays Review page or click here.