Travels from the Cape of Good Hope from the French by Elizabeth Helme

In 1790, an account by the French explorer and ornithologist François le Vaillant (1753–1824) of his travels to the southern parts of Africa, the Voyage dans l’intérieur de l’Afrique, par le Cap de Bonne-Espérance [Voyage to the African Interior via the Cape of Good Hope] appeared in Paris. One of the most influential European travelogues on Africa to appear in the eighteenth century, it offered a detailed account of the two thousand specimens of exotic birds, mammals, insects, and plants, as well as Hottentot artifacts, collected by Vaillant on his journey between 1780 and 1785, many hitherto unknown to science. That year two rival translations of Vaillant’s African travels appeared in Britain, one by an anonymous translator and the other by Elizabeth Helme (?–1810), author of the popular novels Louisa; or the Cottage on the Moor (1787) and Clara and Emmeline (1788). Helme explicitly used her translation to encourage women’s engagement with scientific travel writing, but also faced challenges in conveying information that contravened the strictures of female modesty.