Annette Mary Budgett Meakin (1867–1959) was a British travel author. She and her mother were the first English women to travel to Japan via the

Trans-Siberian railway The Trans-Siberian Railway, historically known as the Great Siberian Route and often shortened to Transsib, is a large railway system that connects European Russia to the Russian Far East. Spanning a length of over , it is the longest railway ...

Life

Annette M. B. Meakin was born on 12 August 1867. Her parents were Edward Ebenezer and Sarah (née Budgett) Meakin. Her father worked as a tea planter in

Almora Almora ( Kumaoni: ') is a municipal corporation and a cantonment town in the state of Uttarakhand, India. It is the administrative headquarters of Almora district. Almora is located on a ridge at the southern edge of the Kumaon Hills of the ...

in India then founded an English-speaking newspaper in

Tangier Tangier ( ; , , ) is a city in northwestern Morocco, on the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The city is the capital city, capital of the Tanger-Tetouan-Al Hoceima region, as well as the Tangier-Assilah Prefecture of Moroc ...

, ''Times of Morocco''. Her brother, James Edward Budgett Meakin was a journalist, her sister Ethilda Budgett Meakin Herford was a doctor and psychoanalyst. She went to school in England and in Germany, studying music at the

Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music (RCM) is a conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the undergraduate to the doctoral level in all aspects of Western Music including pe ...

, Kensington, and the Stern Conservatoire, Berlin, and classics at

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

(UCL). Her instructors at UCL included the classicist and poet

A. E. Housman Alfred Edward Housman (; 26 March 1859 – 30 April 1936) was an English classics, classical scholar and poet. He showed early promise as a student at the University of Oxford, but he failed his final examination in ''literae humaniores'' and t ...

. Housman supplied a reference for her in 1900, commending her for enthusiasm "such as I have seldom known" and for her "zeal" at composing Latin prose and verse. The two continued to correspond until shortly before Housman's death in 1936. During

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

Meakin took the job of a chemist's assistant but writing was her career. She was made an honorary member of the Goethe Society of Weimar for her scholarly work on the friendship of Goethe and Schiller, written in three volumes. She and her mother, Sarah Meakin, were the first English women to travel to Japan on board the Trans-Siberian railway. They left London in January 1900 and they arrived in Russia on 21 May 1900 after delaying for a time in Paris. Annette noted that they had reduced their joint luggage to just three pieces. She wrote an account that was published the following year. Her book "A Ribbon of Iron" also described their stop-overs in

Omsk Omsk (; , ) is the administrative center and largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Omsk Oblast, Russia. It is situated in southwestern Siberia and has a population of over one million. Omsk is the third List of cities and tow ...

Tomsk Tomsk (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Tomsk Oblast in Russia, on the Tom (river), Tom River. Population: Founded in 1604, Tomsk is one of the oldest cities in Siberia. It has six univers ...

Krasnoyarsk Krasnoyarsk is the largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and administrative center of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. It is situated along the Yenisey, Yenisey River, and is the second-largest city in Siberia after Novosibirsk, with a p ...

and for a trip on the nearby

Yenisei River The Yenisey or Yenisei ( ; , ) is the list of rivers by length, fifth-longest river system in the world, and the largest to drain into the Arctic Ocean. Rising in Mungaragiyn-gol in Mongolia, it follows a northerly course through Lake Baikal a ...

which flows to the Arctic Ocean. Her book, ''The Ribbon of Iron'' was extensively quoted in the book of Harmon Tupper, ''To the Great Ocean – Siberia and the Trans-Siberian Railway'', published in London by Secker & Warburg in 1965. She successfully sued another author for plagiarizing her book on Galicia in 1921. In 1912 Catherine Gasquoine Hartley published ''The Story of Santiago de Compostela''. Hartley and her publisher were successfully sued for

plagiarism Plagiarism is the representation of another person's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work.From the 1995 ''Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary'': use or close ...

by Meakin. She showed that Hartley's book was too similar to her book ''Galicia, the Switzerland of Spain''. As part of the settlement Hartley's book was removed from libraries.Kirsty Hooper, ‘Hartley, Catherine Gasquoine (1866/7–1928)’,

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from History of the British Isles, British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') ...

, Oxford University Press, Sept 201
Retrieved 5 January 2016
/ref> Meakin died in 1959. She donated her papers to the

Bodleian Library The Bodleian Library () is the main research library of the University of Oxford. Founded in 1602 by Sir Thomas Bodley, it is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. With over 13 million printed items, it is the second-largest library in ...

Selected works

''A Ribbon Of Iron''
1901 *''In Russian Turkestan: A Garden of Asia'', 1903 *''Russia Travels and Studies'', 1906
''Woman In Transition''
1907
''Galicia, The Switzerland Of Spain''
1909
''Hannah More''
1911
''What America Is Doing, Letters From The New World''
1911 *''Enlistment Or Conscription?'', 1914 *''Nausikaa'', 1926/1938 *''Polyeuctes'', 1929 *''Goethe and Schiller: 1785–1805 The Story of a Friendship'' in three volumes, 1932

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Meakin, Annette Mary Budgett 1867 births 1959 deaths British travel writers British women travel writers Alumni of University College London