Maria Caroline Bolitho came from a distinguished Cornish family near Penzance. An intrepid traveller, she was one of the first women to be admitted as a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Her secret diaries describe a journey from Kashmir to Ladakh in 1896, across the Himalayan passes and have now been discovered and published as A Victorian Lady in the Himalayas.

Jean Burnett at Penzance Litfest 2017