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The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History

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You expect a biography to tell you about someone important, someone who has gained accomplishments in some field of human endeavor, and because of the accomplishments is worth coming to understand as some sort of outstanding example (good or bad) of humanity. Chances are you have never heard of Elizabeth Marsh, an Englishwoman of the eighteenth century, and it isn't that she has an undeserved obscurity. Her life was different in many ways from those of her contemporaries, but she had no special talents or accomplishments, and her life was not exemplary in any way. So it is in some ways odd that historian Linda Colley has made her the subject of a penetrating biography, _The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History_ (Pantheon). Colley has pieced together what can be known of Elizabeth Marsh's life from the spotty writings of Marsh and her family, but as an expert on world history of Marsh's times, she has put the life in the context of the start of globalization. It was a confusing age full of changes that no one knew were coming, and Elizabeth Marsh and her family, who had ties to the British navy and to seagoing trade, thus were in the middle of the changes. In this way Colley's book is history from the bottom up, an attempt to understand the lives of a few ordinary people caught up in larger events.

Elizabeth Marsh got her beginning far from England, born in Jamaica in 1735. Her father was a ship's carpenter, and there is a surprising ease of access to shipboard travel throughout Elizabeth Marsh's life. Her traveling life, her real life, began in 1755, when her family sailed to Menorca, and later to Gibraltar. In 1756 she boarded the _Ann_, a merchantman full of a cargo of brandy, commanded by James Crisp, and thus that she began the prime adventure of her life. The _Ann_ was attacked by Moroccan pirates, and all those aboard were kidnapped and taken to Marrakech, where she had to confront the Sultan who may have wanted her for his harem; she was saved at least partially because she pretended to be James Crisp's wife. When they were released, they married for real. Crisp was involved in the nautical trades of tea, textiles, liquor, dried fish, and anything else. His trade was not always legal, but he had contacts worldwide and seems to have been energetic in his business dealings. His trade, however, did not go well due to global problems well above his capacity to predict or manage. He declared bankruptcy in 1767, moved with Elizabeth to India where he worked in the East India Company, but also failed there. The travels of the couple had worn them down; Colley writes that the fissures in the marriage were "due to the way in which she and he were repeatedly driven and chose to travel very large distances on land and sea." She had left him, traveling ostensibly for her health, but in the company of an unmarried man, touring down the Indian eastern seaboard. She outlived her husband by six years, dying of breast cancer after a mastectomy at only age 49.

There are few details and anecdotes to make Mr. and Mrs. Crisp fully rounded characters, but they are within these pages mere sport for larger historical and economic events. They are battered by wars between England and France, and then England and America, although neither of them saw a shot fired in either conflict. The opening up of world markets, the changes in the slave trade, the conversion from agriculture to industry, and other revolutions all affected the couple. Colley's book succeeds in showing how these huge, sweeping forces affected a woman who could not have understood them and could have done nothing even if she had. Globalization meant, as Colley writes, that "the world was both widening and shrinking" and thus the lives of Elizabeth Marsh and many of the others detailed here were "twisted out of customary moulds in the process". Colley intelligently, but unforcefully, reminds us many times in these pages that we are in the midst of new and even more powerful globalization forces, and Elizabeth Marsh's "shock and wonder, entrapment and new opportunities, remain eloquent and recognizable."

Being a history buff, I was particularly intrigued by (1) the research that Colley put into this, and (2) the actual description of March's happenings. It is an easy read if you don't mind some extraneous detail. I heartily recommend it to others interested in obscure history.

Professor Colley has done a lot of research on Britain's 18th century world, and this book has come out of that. She presents an extraordinary interweaving of naval history, commerce, the status of women, slavery, and the emergence of the USA, among other subjects. I like the way she is upfront about her speculation about Elizabeth Marsh. As she goes along she makes it clear what is in the record, what she believes would have been typical of the era, and what she is only guessing at. Very admirable. But I found the book dry in places. A little more scholarly than I was in the mood for.

Elizabeth Marsh, daughter of a ship's carpenter, was conceived in Jamaica, was born in England in 1735, and died in Calcutta in 1785.

Between these dates, Elizabeth Marsh travelled extensively lived a full (albeit unconventional) life and saw more of the world than most of her contemporaries.

At twenty, as the sole female passenger aboard a merchant ship bound for Lisbon, she was captured by pirates and taken to Morocco. In order to escape, she pretended to be married to her sailing companion, James Crisp.

Ms Colley has written a book that portrays an unconventional life and the backdrop of the times in which Elizabeth Marsh lived.

Highly recommended to those interested in history through the lives of individuals.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

A great book -- I discovered it from my History Book Club, before the great reviews poured in from the critics. I think the New York Times had it as one of its ten best at the end of the year. For all persons interested in women's history, biography, India, Caribbean. Shows how much certain intrepid souls traveled in days of yore. And a rarity in those days--tales written by a woman. The author has done her research carefully & thoroughly; text is easy to follow, not boring. Loved the fact that she was related to Edmund Burke.

Absolutely fascinating. The story was compelling and I actually learned a great deal about world history. Hopefully, this genre will flourish in years to come.

Colley traces Elizabeth Marsh's travels from her birth in Jamaica in the 18th century to her return to England and her journeys by ship through Asia including a pirate adventure. However, the story is far from an adventure tale. It's a detailed excursion of what Colley is able to research about these travels. The focus is not on increasing tension but in attempting to develop a true to history account of Marsh's life. It is often difficult to develop this account because while Colley is able to unearth a surprising amount of material about (and by) a rather obscure woman, it is still largely incomplete. Colley does attempt to stick with what she has evidence for and when she dives into conjecture she acknowledges that she is doing so. So, you do feel like you are getting a historically accurate portrayal. However what she loses in her adherence to accuracy is anything to compel the reader on. You never get to know the woman Elizabeth Marsh except through very brief examples covered in lots of research language.

The book works as a well-researched picture of British history in its postcolonial posts through the eyes of a middle class, unusual woman (so in that case this is not a picture of postcolonial history but a very specific portrayal). We get details about the extreme poverty and disease in Jamaica and brief looks at the British East Indian influence in India (and the power it held) and glimpses of life on ship in this era.

The book does not work as a compelling portrait of an adventurous woman. I never really cared about Marsh and often forgot about her entirely, paying more attention to the rest of the book than to what was happening to Marsh. There are multiple forays into the history of other people around her that were distracting and not particularly enlightening.

This book was selected for my book club. It was universally reviewed as a "dud". Everyone in the club had trouble with this book. It was tedious to read, there was no emotional connection to Elizabeth Marsh, and not many of us even finished the book. I felt that I deserved 3 units in Ms. Colley's British History class, because I actually finished the book. The last one third of the book starts to move a little faster and is somewhat interesting. So, if you have started the book, you may as well finish it. You must read how Elizabeth dies.

This bookshould have been titled "The Ordeal Of People Foolish Enough To Purchase And Then Try to Read The Unreadable The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh."

Much ado about nothing.

I gave up on page 137.

This was one of the worst books I have ever read. It reads like a Ph.D. thesis - with some sentences being 2 and 3 lines long. There is nothing said by the heroine - just about her - and in a most tedious descriptive manner, often confusing (since her mother shared her name). Boring boring boring. I gave up after half of the book was finished. It was a Christmas gift to me and I will donate it to our local University - perhaps some student of history or genealogy would be interested. I am certainly not.