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Part 1: A Victorian, Chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4

• Janet Wallach establishes the cultural and social mores into which Gertrude Bell is born in the opening chapters.

• Victorian England provides Bell the comfort of her family's wealth as well as the strict mores and regulations that limit a woman's possibilities in life.

• The Victorian environment will prove a challenge for Bell, a woman who is bright and driven, as it affords no place to channel her energies outside the academic world.

• Her mother dies when she is merely three, and this sets the foundation for an extremely close relationship between Bell and her father.

• Bell is also shown to be more comfortable in the company of men, probably as a result of her relationship with her father.

• While successful in the academic world of men, she is unsuccessful in their romantic environment where Victorian women are expected to marry by age 20 and...

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