A Woman In Arabia: The Writings Of The Queen Of The Desert

Author: Gertrude Bell

Stock information

General Fields

  • : $27.99 AUD
  • : 9780143107378
  • : Penguin Group USA
  • : Penguin
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  • : 0.454
  • : September 2015
  • : 198mm X 129mm
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  • : 36.99
  • : May 2015
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  • : books

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  • : Gertrude Bell
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  • : Paperback
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  • : en
  • : 915.6042
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Barcode 9780143107378
9780143107378

Description

A portrait in her own words of the female Lawrence of Arabia, the subject of the upcoming major motion picture Queen of the Desert, starring Nicole Kidman, James Franco, Damian Lewis, and Robert Pattinson, and directed by Werner Herzog Gertrude Bell was leaning in 100 years before Sheryl Sandberg. One of the great woman adventurers of the twentieth century, she turned her back on Victorian society to study at Oxford and travel the world, and became the chief architect of British policy in the Middle East after World War I. Mountaineer, archaeologist, Arabist, writer, poet, linguist, and spy, she dedicated her life to championing the Arab cause and was instrumental in drawing the borders that define today's Middle East.   As she wrote in one of her letters, "It's a bore being a woman when you are in Arabia." Forthright and spirited, opinionated and playful, and deeply instructive about the Arab world, this volume brings together Bell's letters, military dispatches, diary entries, and travel writings to offer an intimate look at a woman who shaped nations. For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Reviews

"Her letters are exactly herself--eager, interested, almost excited. . . . She kept an everlasting freshness; or at least, however tired she was, she could always get up enough interest to match that of anyone who came to see her. I don't think I ever met anyone more entirely civilized, in the sense of her width of intellectual sympathy." --T. E. Lawrence

Author description

Gertrude Bell (1868-1926) was born to an aristocratic family and became a renowned archaeologist, Arabist, linguist, writer, poet, and mountaineer. During WWI she served as a spy, army major, and then advisor for the British armed forces. In the aftermath of the war, her statesmanship helped to lay the framework for the modern Middle East. Georgina Howell is the author of the acclaimed biography Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations.