ABSTRACT
Paris has been the subject of dozens of travel memoirs. From Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast and Gertrude Stein’s Paris, France, writers have documented their adventures, challenges, and sensuous experiences in the City of Light. Both men and women have documented descriptive, thorough and eloquent accounts of their Paris pursuits. However, women’s travel to Paris is distinct and has been expressed both explicitly and implicitly through non-fiction travel books. Although many of these texts are referred to as travel memoirs, the travel book resembles or is a subspecies of a memoir, an autobiographical narrative (Dann, 1999). A travel book is also much like a quest romance, based on the idea of a hero setting out, experiencing trials and adventure, and returning home victorious and changed (Dann, 1999).
