RIDING TO THE TIGRIS

FREYA STARK

JOHN MURRAY: LONDON
1959

First edition.
In Riding to the Tigris Freya Stark returns to the style that made her first book, The Valleys of the Assassins, a classic among travel books. The years and experiences between have deepened and enriched her sensitivity but have not modified her method of travelling: and most of the journey from Lake Van on the high Turkish plateau, through the lonely and mountainous Hakkiari, and down to the River Tigris was achieved on horseback. She travelled alone except for muleteers whom the kindness of the Turkish governors provided and chance companions—a young schoolmaster with his violin, a jester with his mad son, and a police escort here and there—who found themselves attached to an unusual traveller, probably the first Western woman to make this journey.

History plays a minor role in this book, for even the greatest movements of people and civilisations have washed round this difficult, and till recently dangerous, area which contains the watershed of three rivers and one of the spots where Noah's ark is reputed to have touched ground.

Freya Stark has a genius for travelling on her own. It is the unexpected, in events and travelling companions, that brings out the best in her and her powers of most vivid description, whether it be falling ill in a hospital empty except for an old woman, or an impromptu stay in nomad tents, or the incongruous elements of old Iraq and modern Turkey, or the dangerous behaviour of her horse every time she opened her parasol. Beyond being the story of a remarkable achievement at a time when events in Iraq were making this borderland particularly sensitive, the book presents a philosophy both of life and travel; and it is clear that for contemplation in desolate places there is nothing like the saddle of a horse.

23 x 15 cm. xi + 108 pp + index + b/w photo plates. With a magazine article and newspaper cutting about the author loosely inserted.

Very good condition. Dust jacket age toned and edge worn. Previous owner's details on the front free endpaper. Edges of the boards faded. Page edges age toned.

The original owner was a friend of Stark and travelled in the same region.
 

From the collection of Patricia, Countess Jellicoe.

Patsy Jellicoe, as she was know (1917-2012), lecturer on Islamic art and society hostess, was a remarkable woman in the tradition of Gertrude Bell and Fraya Stark. Born in Shanghai (where she danced with Margot Fonteyn), educated by French nuns and then at the Slade School of Art. Returning to China in 1937 shortly before the Japanese invaded, she was interned in a prison camp until 1942. Upon release she got a job in the British Embassy in Beirut where she met and married the 2nd Earl Jellicoe, one of the SAS originals and first commander of the SBS.

Extremely well connected to royalty, politicians, artists and academics, she developed an interest the history and culture of the Middle East and Central Asia, travelling extensively in the region and going on several archaeological digs. In 1971 she started giving lectures at the Royal Asiatic Society and for the next 30 years she gave lectures around the world; Gore Vidal described the countess as “the most erudite woman I have ever known”.