A Fool on Wheels - Tangier to Baghdad by Land-Rover

First edition, first printing of Barbara Toy's first travel account, with interesting provenance. "First published 1955" stated to the copyright page, with no other editions or printings indicated. Original blue cloth white lettered to the spine, in black, red and white illustrated jacket 15x23cm. 256pp including full-page b/w route map + 15 b/w photos by the author all present as called for. Jacket good, unclipped with the "16s net" price retained, rubbed with abrasion to the spine and a little loss at the spine head, foxed to the verso, in a removable clear protector. Covers very good, faded to the spine ends and part of the top edge of the lower board. Slight lean to the spine. Interiors near fine with some spotting and foxing to the endpapers. The blank front free endpaper is neatly clipped to the top corner and inscribed in blue ink: "To Peter, With best wishes and grateful appreciation, Christine & Eric, Khartoum 31.8.55". These individuals have not been identified, but it is dated the day after the British suppressed Sudanese Equatoria Corps officers who had risen up in response to government actions that favoured North Sudan over the South (Torit Mutiny, 18-30 August). Government forces entered Torit on 31 August, summarily tried then executed 300 mutineers. This was in the final months of British rule, with the Mutiny marking the start of the First Sudanese Civil War (18 August 1955-72). This was Toy's first travel book, describing the first journey in her Land Rover Pollyanna during 1950-51. Starting in French Morocco, her route largely followed the coast through Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt as far as Alexandria, then to Beirut via Cyprus, before looping through Syria and Transjordan to Iraq. Her bio on the jacket anticipates future books, stating that her career in film (as a writer, director, producer and actor) "was only marking time until she could be on the move again, for she is a tramp. She believes that something has gone wrong with our whole approach to living and sees in the eastern way of life, a better answer - She likes meeting people and her hobby is photography - she plans to write of more of her experiences".…