Abstract

The article presents the perception of the concept of race in texts of two travel writers: Maria Rakowska and Helena Pajzderska. It points to similarities and differences between the concepts of the authors and the anthropological discourse of the second half of the 19th century. Further, it is demonstrated that the authors extended racial typologies based on the physiological difference with reflection on social and cultural diversity (the concept of family, everyday life). The final remarks lead to considerations on the relationship between the literary genre and the 19th-century travel discourse.