The invisible woman

Elizabeth Marsh was an undistinguished member of an unremarkable dynasty. She was neither famous nor infamous and had no conspicuous talent except, perhaps, for survival. Her father’s family was involved in maritime activity but of her mother we know nothing. Elizabeth herself was married to James Crisp, an entrepreneur of uncertain fortunes from whom she spent long periods living or travelling apart. But it was before she married him that the event which marks her life as unusual occurred: in 1756 the ship on which she was travelling was boarded by Moroccan sailors and she was taken by force to Marrakesh and kept as the prisoner of the acting Sultan, Sidi Muhammed.

Though her capture was political, there appears to have been a sexual element in Sidi Muhammed’s plans for her. She was released physically unharmed, but her more fragile reputation was compromised, leading to a marriage to one of her fellow-captives (Crisp) which was more practical than ideal. Marsh’s account of her experiences (The Female Captive) made her the first woman to write and publish on the Maghreb in English, and with this episode, which occupies only a tenth of Colley’s book, her claim to notoriety ends.

What, then, is the rest of this book about? Colley opens her account with the explanation that ‘This is a biography that crosses boundaries, and it tells three connected stories.’ These are the stories of Elizabeth Marsh, her extended family and the transformative times in which they all lived. It quickly becomes clear that this is not a biography (as most are) about the contribution of an individual to changing the world, but the opposite:

To an almost eerie degree, Marsh was repeatedly caught fast in geographically wide-

ranging events and pressures .