Guiding Lights:
The extraordinary lives of lighthouse women
Available as a hardcover, ebook and audiobook. Buy now from Exisle Publishing >>
'Guiding Lights is a beautiful, clever book, capturing the stark, wave-lashed ruggedness of lighthouse-keeping.'
– Kete Books (NZ)
'This past week I've been obsessed with reading Guiding Lights ... Many of these doughty women did it tough, not just as helper to their lighthouse keeper spouse, but often running the show.'
– The Australian
'A unique, eloquent, and impressively informative study.'
– Midwest Book Review (USA)
'This fascinating book is highly recommended.'
– Australian National Maritime Museum
From darkness to light, light to darkness…
Guiding Lights shares the stories of lighthouse women from around the world and through the centuries, including heroic female keepers, isolated families, dedicated caretakers – and the lingering ‘ghosts’ of old lighthouses.
These stories include the brave and dedicated American women who worked as principal keepers in the 1800s while raising their children; 21st-century caretakers living alone on Tasmania’s wild Maatsuyker Island, home to Australia’s southernmost lighthouse; the female keeper in charge of a remote lighthouse on Canada’s Vancouver Island (the station receives visits from bears, cougars and wolves); tragic tales from abandoned towers around the globe; and two of the world’s most legendary lighthouse women: Ida Lewis and Grace Darling, who risked their lives to save others.
Guiding Lights also explores our perception of lighthouses: are they comforting and romantic beacons symbolizing hope and trust, or storm-lashed and forbidding towers with echoes of lonely souls? Whatever our perceptions, these stories of women’s courage and dedication in minding the lights — then and now — will inspire you. As evidence of our ongoing fascination with coastal lights, accompanying these stories are more than 100 photos, paintings and portraits, and also extracts from poems, books, and old newspaper clippings.