The Legend Of Miss Irby

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31304, 25 February 1967, Page 4

The Legend Of Miss Irby

Miss Irby and Her Friends. By Dorothy Anderson.

Hutchinson. 252 pp.

Dorothy Anderson was born in New Zealand and her interest in nineteenth century history began with research into the lives of pioneer woman of this country. Her studies extended to woman travellers generally and in this book she deals with one who deserves to be better known. Paulina Irby’s interest in the Slav peoples started when, in 1859, she and a friend, journeying across the Carpathians, were arrested as spies accused ot having “panslavistic tendencies.” The charge was not accurate at the time but in the lives of the two ladies this incident marked the beginning of a decade of travel, study and publication at the end of which they were ardent champions of Balkan independence. Mrs Anderson tells of Miss Irby’s establishment of a school for girls in Sarajevo, of her Herculean labours among the Bosnian refugees after the revolt of 1875, of the support she won from such figures as Florence Nightingale and Gladstone and of her teaching in Sarajevo till her death in 1911. In a short final chapter she traces the growth of the legend of Miss Irby, the Jugoslav patriot who is still revered in Sarajevo on the same day as Princip, the Bosnian nationalist who fired the shot which triggered off World War I. The fascinating and at times almost incredible story of Miss Irby’s achievements is well told. Mrs Anderson writes with precision and clarity, drawing vividly the characters of Paulina Irby and her two main friends Georgina Muir McKenzie and Priscilla Johnston. There are some excellent illustrations and an adequate bibliography and index. This is a thorough and enthralling account of the work of one Victorian lady. The reader may wish at times for a few lighter touches but perhaps this is the fault notj of the writer but of the sub-1 ject whose portrait gazes out) “sad, ponderous and obstinate.” '