A WINTER IN ARABIA

First edition, first printing. Publisher's original turquoise cloth, with gilt titles to the spine and a facsimile of the author's signature in gilt to the upper board, in dustwrapper. Deckled fore- and bottom edges. With a black and white frontispiece, 87 black and white photographic plates and three tipped-in maps (one printed on light green paper, and another folding, at the rear). A better than very good copy, the binding square and firm, the cloth a little faded to the spine and moderately to the extreme top and bottom edges and lightly rubbed spine tips. The contents, with a pencilled inscription to the front pastedown, a touch of toning to the closed text block and a short closed tear to the fore-edge of p. 105, are otherwise clean throughout. Complete with the rubbed, nicked and creased dustwrapper, that is a little faded and marked to the spine, edges and flap folds. Not price-clipped (16s net to the lower front flap).

Freya Stark (1893-1993) was an English explorer and travel writer who undertook her first expedition in 1927 when, due to Lebanon and Syria being under a repressive French regime which did not allow travel in the region, she travelled in secret (moving only at night and through the countryside) by donkey through Lebanon. A few years later she became the first westerner to explore certain remote parts of the Iranian wilderness, and in 1934 travelled to the Hadhramaut. During World War II Stark was employed by the British Ministry of Information and was posted in Yemen, Egypt, Iraq and Palestine. Following the war she resumed her explorations, was made a Dame in 1972 and travelled widely all the way into old age; at the age of 89 she was filmed by the BBC riding into the Himalayas on a mule. She wrote of her travels prolifically from 1934 to 1988. "In all her journeys she was able to distil and communicate a rich philosophy of travel and to illustrate the art of travelling in time as well as place. She carried the past with her, whether discovering long-buried fortresses in the Valley of the Assassins in Luristan or tracing the footsteps of the ancient incense traders of Arabia, always teaching and learning at the same time. She was, quite simply, a classic" (Robinson, Jane: Wayward Women, A Guide to Women Travellers, OUP 1991).