Synopses & Reviews
A portrait in her own words of the female Lawrence of Arabia, the subject of the upcoming major motion picture Queen of the Desert, directed by Werner Herzog and starring Nicole Kidman, James Franco, and Robert Pattinson
Gertrude Bell was leaning in 100 years before Sheryl Sandberg. One of the great woman adventurers of the twentieth century, she turned her back on Victorian society to study at Oxford and travel the world, and became the chief architect of British policy in the Middle East after World War I. Mountaineer, archaeologist, Arabist, writer, poet, linguist, and spy, she dedicated her life to championing the Arab cause and was instrumental in drawing the borders that define todays Middle East.
As she wrote in one of her letters, Its a bore being a woman when you are in Arabia.” Forthright and spirited, opinionated and playful, and deeply instructive about the Arab world, this volume brings together Bells letters, military dispatches, diary entries, and travel writings to offer an intimate look at a woman who shaped nations.
For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Review
"Following worthily in the tradition of Burton, Lawrence, Philby and Thomas, [
Arabian Sands] is, very likely, the book about Arabia to end all books about Arabia."
-The Daily Telegraph, London
"The narrative is vividly written, with a thousand little anecdotes and touches which bring back to any who have seen these countries every scene with the colour of real life."
-The Sunday Times, London
Review
“Her letters are exactly herself—eager, interested, almost excited. . . . She kept an everlasting freshness; or at least, however tired she was, she could always get up enough interest to match that of anyone who came to see her. I dont think I ever met anyone more entirely civilized, in the sense of her width of intellectual sympathy.” —T. E. Lawrence
Synopsis
"Following worthily in the tradition of Burton, Lawrence, Philby and Thomas, Arabian Sands] is, very likely, the book about Arabia to end all books about Arabia." The Daily Telegraph
Arabian Sandsis Wilfred Thesiger's record of his extraordinary journey through the parched "Empty Quarter" of Arabia. Educated at Eton and Oxford, Thesiger was repulsed by the softness and rigidity of Western life "the machines, the calling cards, the meticulously aligned streets." In the spirit of T. E. Lawrence, he set out to explore the deserts of Arabia, traveling among peoples who had never seen a European and considered it their duty to kill Christian infidels. His now-classic account is invaluable to understanding the modern Middle East."
Synopsis
In the spirit of T.E. Lawrence, Wilfred Thesiger spent five years wandering the deserts of Arabia, producing Arabian Sands, 'a memorial to a vanished past, a tribute to a once magnificent people'. The Penguin Classics edition includes an introduction by Rory Stewart.
Wilfred Thesiger, repulsed by what he saw as the softness and rigidity of Western life - 'the machines, the calling cards, the meticulously aligned streets' - spent years exploring in and around the vast, waterless desert that is the 'Empty Quarter' of Arabia. Travelling amongst the Bedu people, he experienced their everyday challenges of hunger and thirst, the trials of long marches beneath the relentless sun, the bitterly cold nights and the constant danger of death if it was discovered he was a Christian 'infidel'. He was the first European to visit most of the region, and just before he left the area the process that would change it forever had begun - the discovery of oil.
This edition contains an introduction by Rory Stewart discussing the dangers of Thesiger's travels, his unconventional personality and his insights into the Bedouin way of life.
Sir Wilfred Patrick Thesiger (1910-2003) was a British travel writer born in Addis Ababa in Abyssinia (now Ethiopia). Thesiger is best known for two travel books: Arabian Sands (1959), which recounts his travels in the Empty Quarter of Arabia between 1945 and 1950 and describes the vanishing way of life of the Bedouins, and The Marsh Arabs (1964), an account of the traditional peoples who lived in the marshlands of southern Iraq.
If you enjoyed Arabian Sands, you might like T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom, also available in Penguin Modern Classics
'Thesiger is perhaps the last, and certainly one of the greatest, of the British travellers among the Arabs'
Sunday Times
'Following worthily in the tradition of Burton, Lawrence, Philby and Thomas, it is, very likely, the book about Arabia to end all books about Arabia'
Daily Telegraph
Synopsis
Arabian Sands is Wilfred Thesiger's record of his extraordinary journey through the parched "Empty Quarter" of Arabia. Educated at Eton and Oxford, Thesiger was repulsed by the softness and rigidity of Western life-"the machines, the calling cards, the meticulously aligned streets." In the spirit of T. E. Lawrence, he set out to explore the deserts of Arabia, traveling among peoples who had never seen a European and considered it their duty to kill Christian infidels. His now-classic account is invaluable to understanding the modern Middle East.
About the Author
GERTRUDE BELL (18681926) was one of the first women to be made a Commander of the British Empire. Her statesmanship paved the way for the creation of an independent Iraq.
GEORGINA HOWELL is the author of the acclaimed Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations. She lives in London and Brittany, France.