"Across the Empty Quarter." Reprinted from the Geographical Journal, Vol. CVI, Nos. 1-3, January-March 1948.

THESIGER, Wilfred.

Published by London: Royal Geographical Society, 1948

About this Item

Offprint, the copy of Alan Trott, the British ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1947 to 1951, with his 1 August 1949 ownership inscription on the front cover. This article, based on Thesiger's lecture to the RGS in October 1947, is the first printed description of his crossing of the Empty Quarter - the fulfilment of a decade-long ambition. In 1944, while in Addis Ababa, "Thesiger met Owen Bevan Lean of the Middle East Anti-Locust Unit, whom he had met first at the Natural History Museum, South Kensington, in 1933. Lean was then looking for someone experienced in desert travel, to investigate possible locust outbreak centres in Arabia. Thesiger seized this opportunity to explore the empty quarter, the great sand desert of southern Arabia, which had been his ambition for a decade. Thesiger first crossed the empty quarter in 1946-7, a journey of 2000 miles that began and ended at Salala, on Arabia's south coast" (ODNB). Trott (1895-1959) and other British officials "viewed him with suspicion. Wandering through the Saudi part of the Empty Quarter without seeking Ibn Saud's permission was sure to win him no friends in Riyadh. Trott was worried that Thesiger might prove to be another Muslim renegade like Philby" (Morton). Michael Quentin Morton, Buraimi: The Struggle for Power, Influence and Oil in Arabia, 2014. Octavo. With 4 half-tone plates, 2 large folding maps. Original blue card wrappers, wire-stitched as issued, front cover lettered in black. Wrappers sunned, moderate foxing to covers and contents, only slightly affecting maps: a very good copy indeed.

Seller Inventory # 184712

Bibliographic Details

• Title: "Across the Empty Quarter." Reprinted from the Geographical Journal, Vol. CVI, Nos. 1-3, January-March 1948.
• Publisher: London: Royal Geographical Society, 1948
• Edition: 1st Edition