Mary Kingsley — a reassessment

The purpose of this article is to examine the ideas of Mary Kingsley, not merely in abstract, but as the political theory of certain groups active in Late Victorian colonial affairs. A ‘surgical’ approach of this kind is almost certain to reduce concepts which at first sight seem brilliant and original to more mundane proportions, so perhaps at the outset this woman's outstanding achievements should be emphasized. Among contemporaries of her sex few achieved more; at a time when women were struggling to create merely the elementary conditions in which to express themselves, Mary Kingsley overshadowed the male competitors in her chosen field, sometimes in physical and almost always in intellectual achievement.