1937 Persian Pictures

Description

Publishers' Original Binding, With Dustwrapper

The first edition thus of the first work to be published in Jonathan Cape's New Library series. In the very scarce publisher's original price clipped dust wrapper.

Originally published in 1894, this is a work of non-fiction from Gertrude Bell, an English writer, traveller, political officer, administrator, and archaeologist who explored, mapped, and became highly influential to British imperial policy-making. In 1892, when she was twenty-four, she first travelled to Persia, describing her journey in this work.

With an introduction from Vita Sackville-West, who observes that 'her love of life throbbed through every word she spoke or wrote'. Vita and Gertrude first met in Constantinople before the First World War, thereafter maintaining a friendship and correspondence. In their last meeting, just months before Bell's death, Sackville-West visited Bell in Baghdad and was gifted a Saluki dog named Zurcha by her host.