Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Secole in Many Lands
1. What are some of the implications of the choice of title for Seacole's memoirs? What generic claims does it seem to make? Do the book's contents seem consistent with the tone of the title?
2. What are features of W. H. Russell's prefatory testimonial? Which aspects of her character does he stress, and why may he have done so?
3. Who were Seacole's parents and what attitudes does she express toward them? What are some features of Seacole's early life? How do her reactions resemble and/or differ from those of Wedderburn and Prince?
4. What do you make of her expressed attitudes toward Creoles, black people, and Britons? With which groups does she identity?
5. How did she learn her craft? How did she come to be accepted as a "doctress"? What kinds of medicines does she use?
6. What are some instances of racism she records, and how does she respond to them? What does she remember about her first visits to London?
7. What is her opinion of Americans, and what grounds does she form this? What do you make of her claim that Americans were generally more racist than Britons?
8. What are some features of the book's style? How does the narrator employ humor?
9. What kind of character does she attempt to project? Why do you think she is concerned to emphasize her modesty, respectability, disapproval of kept women, careful dress and proper sleeping quarters?
10. What were some motivations for her travels and medicinal pursuits? Would the combination of nursing and providing food have been a natural combination?
11. What attitudes does she express toward Catholicism? Why do you think she may feel such contempt for the priests she described?
12. What are some unusual features of Seacole's character and life choices? What purpose did her husband seem to have served in her account? What seem to have been some of her motivations for feeding travellers and nursing the sick?
13. What are her expressed views on "woman's mission"?
14. Which aspects of her account may have been tailored to please her British audience?