The feasts of Sir Samuel White Baker, who was once described as 'the perfect victorian hero', have been recorded in detail, but little has been written abouth his wife, the equally remarkable Florence. The events of florence Baker's life read like a nove. Born in the 1840's into an aristocratic family who were murdered in the Hungarian revolution, Florence fled to the Ottoman empire with her nurse. She was next heard of living in a harem, barely in her teens, before being sold as a slave. It was her own auction that she first met the man who was to become her husband, the English explorer Samuel white Baker. Sam Baker was so entranced by the beautiful florence that, failing to buy her, he organized her kidnap, whisking her out of the harem under a cloak of secrecy. From this most unlikely of beginnings, Sam and Florence embarded on a grand romance - theirs was to be happy and long-lasting union.In this fascinating book Pat Shipman brings the redoubtable and unique Florence out from beneath the shadow of her more famous husband.

THE STOLEN WOMAN is the story of a remarkable woman, of an extraordinary love affair, but also of the golden age of exploration when brave men - and women - set out into the great unkown in search of knowledge and redefined the way we viewed the world for ever.