Wilfred Thesiger: 'Arabian Sands', London, Longmans, 1959, 1...

Hammer

£280

Wilfred Thesiger: 'Arabian Sands', London, Longmans, 1959, 1st edition, card signed by Thesiger in blue ink loosely inserted, folding map of the Empty Quarter in rear pocket, plus numerous other maps and photographic illustrations as called for, original cloth gilt, dust wrapper (35/- net price intact. Thesiger's first and most important work, recounting his crossing of the Empty Quarter under the aegis of the Middle East Anti-Locust Unit in 1946-7. "Following worthily in the tradition of Burton, Lawrence, Philby and Thomas, [Arabian Sands] is, very likely, the book about Arabia to end all books about Arabia." Indeed, St John Philby described Thesiger as "probably the greatest of all explorers" (Maitland, 380) and Sir John Glubb regarded him "the last, and certainly one of the greatest, of the British travellers among the Arabs" (ibid.). Alexander Maitland, Wilfred Thesiger: the Life of the Great Explorer (2006).