The Letters of Gertrude Bell - 2 Volume Set
London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1927.
5th Impression. Hardcover.
Special cloth binding with gilt top-edges and leather title labels decorated and lettered in gilt on spines by Riviere & Son.
The letters of English writer, traveler, political appointee, and archaeologist Gertrude Lawrence selected by her stepmother Lady Florence Bell after her death in 1926. Lawrence's travels and adventures throughout the Middle East earned her the sobriquet Queen of the Desert. Her earliest letters presented here were penned in 1868 at the age of 6, and her latest were written from Baghdad in 1926 where she spent much of the last ten years of her life. A confidante and advisor of King Faisal of Iraq, Lawrence was appointed to the office of Honorary Director of Antiquities. In this role she oversaw excavations, including those conducted at Ur by Leonard Woolley, catalogued and stored antiquities accumulated during her tenure, and advocated for the creation of the Baghdad Archaeological Museum which opened shortly before her death in 1926.
Item #9016136-1/8 x 9-5/8", blue cloth, gilt top-edges, xiii, 492pp, vii, 791pp, index, frontis. portrait with tissues guards and map each volume (folding map of Persia at the end of Volume II), 37 additional illustrations in text.
A bit of rubbing to edges of cloth, spines a bit darkened, clean of owner’s marks, tight, square, an attractive set.
Price: $50.00