SYRIA: THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

First Folio Society edition, first printing. Original green cloth with gilt titles and a design by Yehrin Tong in gilt and maroon to the spine and boards. With a large fold out map showing the author's route bound separately in green cloth. Both volumes are housed in a green card slipcase. Illustrated with a colour John Singer Sargent frontispiece and many black and white photographs by the author throughout. A fine copy, the binding square and tight, the contents clean and bright throughout and without stamps or inscriptions. Complete with the very near fine original slipcase, that has a minor bump to the open edge.

A beautifully produced edition of Gertrude Bell's pioneering text on her travels in Greater Syria, with a new introduction by Dawn Chatty, Professor of Anthropology and Forced Migration at the University of Oxford. Gertrude Bell (1868-1926) was an English writer, political administrator and archeologist who traveled extensively, particularly in the Middle East. Her knowledge of the region made her a valuable source of information and influence to the British Government during World War One, and she played a key role in their campaign against the Ottoman Empire. After the war she focused on her archeological interests and gained an official role relating to archaeology in Irag, writing the first antiquities law for the state and establishing the Iraq Museum in Baghdad. 'Syria: The Desert and the Sown' documents her 1905 expedition through the Syrian Desert to Asia Minor, providing an invaluable view of the culture, politics and landscape of the region in the early 20th century. The photographs in this edition are new prints taken from Bell's negatives that are held at Newcastle University, an archive that is listed in the UNESCO Memories of the World register.