Audiobook

Englishwoman in the Philippines

Enid Dauncey

Enid Gambier Dauncey was a travel writer who, with her businessman husband, lived in a provincial city in the Philippines for nine months from 1904 to 1905. Her account of that stay, in the form of letters to friends, is something more than a travelogue, as she made many astute observations that would normally be missed by someone simply passing through. Her stay there occurred just a few years after the Americans replaced the Spanish as the colonial masters, and she includes anecdotes that reveal that tense relationship, as well as the naivete of the Americans called upon to administer their new 'protectorate'. Mrs. Dauncey's entertaining description of Philippine social and material life, with her comments on the culture from her foreigner's perspective, are enlivened by her natural curiosity and dry wit. (Summary by Ted Lienhart)