Excerpts from her personal correspondence and passages from her published autobiography combine to produce a vivid first-person account revealing her interests, opinions and experiences, along with all the pleasures and frustrations of prolonged overseas travel. Richly illustrated with facsimiles of letters and pen sketches she sent to friends, and reproductions of her celebrated oil paintings.

The book relays pertinent details about North's life and considers her varied attitudes towards the people she met and the places she visited, including what her writings and paintings may suggest about her attitudes to empire and colonialism. A final chapter will cover her English homes, particularly her London flat, which she felt was 'more like home than any other'.