Sophia Raffles, Anna Leonowens, Harriette McDougal, Emily Innes, Isabella Bird, and Anna Forbes all came to South-East Asia as an encounter with an unknown world. It was an adventure in which they, and in some cases their children, were at risk of death by violence or disease, and they lived or travelled to remote places. In different ways they were all talented and observant. Each was a gifted writer who left a personal account of her experiences, what she saw, the people whom she met, and how they lived in parts of nineteenth century South-East Asia. The authors of the biographical essays in this volume have supplemented the personal remiscences of their subjects with information from other sources to provide original studies of six remarkable women throughout their lives, before, during, and after their time in South-East Asia.