Travels in Arabia Deserta. With a new Preface by the Author Introd. by T.E. Lawrence ...

This is a rare or used book from the Berkelouw Rare Books Department.

London: The Medici Society (1926). 8vo. Or. cloth. Spine gilt. (lii 624 2 690pp.). T.e.g. With frontisp. maps plans and illustrations some of which are folding. First one volume edition on thin-paper complete and unabridged. Slightly foxed. Rare. NOTE: First published in 1888 this classic of travel is one of the greatest books of the 19th century. Written in Elizabethan English it was refused by four publishers but when it appeared its importance was recognised by scholars. "The unique value of his journey 1876-8 began with its second stage when alone with small funds and stubbornly proclaiming himself an Englishman and a Christian Doughty had to endure not only the fatigue and privation of desert life but also in a measure spared to those travellers who have enjoyed powerful support or gone in disguise as Moslems the suspician and occasionally the violence of the Arab society to which he had entrusted himself. In these circumstances of difficulty he gathered a vast amount of new information about the geography and geology of North-Western Arabia being the first to record accurately the true direction of the great watercourses of Wadi Hamd and Wadier-Rumma. Of still greater value was the understanding which he gained of Arab character and the conditions of Nomad Life. In these respects his contributions to Western knowledge of Arabic was taken as a whole the greatest which had yet been made and the acuteness and the wisdom of his observations made him the acknowledged master of all later travellers."