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Bell, Gertrude; Bell, Florence (editor).
The Letters of Gertrude Bell.
Publisher: Ernest Benn, London;
Date of Publication: 1927
Stock Code: 10691
FIRST EDITION. Octavo, pp. xiii, [1], 402; vii, [1], 791, [1]. Complete with 32 plates including frontispieces, and a folding map to rear of volume two. Bound in publisher’s deep green cloth over boards with gilt titles to spine. With the original cream pictorial dust-jackets; a portrait of King Faisal to the upper cover of volume one and Auda, Chief of the Abu Tayi to volume two. Some toning and light foxing to endpapers else contents clean, tight and bright and free from inscriptions or annotations. Illustrated plates and folding map clean and without tears. The dust-jackets are lightly soiled with minor loss to edges and small closed tears repaired with tape. A very good set in good dust-jackets. The collected letters of the remarkable explorer, poet, mountaineer, art critic, archaeologist and diplomat, Gertrude Bell (1868-1926). One of the greatest minds of the Twentieth Century, the dust-jacket blurb shows that against the odds of her gender, she was fiercely admired by male contemporaries who described her as an “expert as recognised by experts” in all her numerous fields of achievements. Edited by her stepmother Florence Bell (1851-1930) and published the year after her death, the letters cover Bell’s childhood to the end of her life. Rare in the original 1927 dust-jackets. £280.00