Syria: The Desert and the Sown

1919

Brasch DS94 BD78 1908

London: Heinemann

Inscribed in this book is the following note: ‘Miss Gertrude Bell was one of the most potent British influences in the Near East & one of the greatest women travellers of all time.’ Bell (1868-1926) was like her compatriot in the desert, T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia): an Oxford graduate, archaeologist, secret agent, Foreign Office employee, and inveterate traveller. Indeed, to Lawrence (and others) she was ‘Bell of Baghdad’. Bell’s early expeditions in the Middle East, which included meeting and conversing with Bedouin tribesmen, resulted in her Syria: The Desert and the Sown (1907), of which this is a later reprint. Bell continued to have immense influence in Arab and Iraq affairs until her death in 1926.