A Pilgrimage To Nejd, The Cradle of the Arab Race. A Visit To The Court of the Arab Emir, and Our Persian Campaign - Lady Anne Blunt 1881 - John Murray, London - First Edition First edition of the second of Lady Blunt’s two classic travel accounts, in publisher’s original gilt pictorial cloth, and describing the journey that she and her husband, the poet Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, made in the winter of 1878–7, across the Nejd from Beirut, south into the Great Nefud, north to Baghdad and east to the Persian Gulf. Lady Anne was the first European woman to reach the Nejd and, together with her husband, they were the first Europeans to enter the Jebel Shammar in the Nejd. At Hail they met the Emir who received them courteously, having recently knifed his nephew and cut off the feet of his cousins, leaving them to bleed to death.

With over 30 black and white illustrations including fifteen wood-engraved plates, and large folding colour map.

‘To find out how the Bedouin lived, Lady Anne lived like one herself: she became a temporary nomad, riding the two thousand miles from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf for the most part in Arab dress, and without guides or the usual caravan. This was quite an innovation, and prompted Blunt to dub his wife ‘the first bona-fide tourist who has taken the Euphrates road'. - Jane Robinson,
Wayward Women.
  Lady Anne Isabella Noel Blunt (1837-1917), 15th Baroness Wentworth - The daughter of William King and Ada Lovelace, granddaughter of Lord Byron and wife of the extravagant Arab scholar and poet Wilfred Scawan Blunt. Lady Blunt went on to live an extraordinary life. The diaries and notes that Anne wrote reveal their travels across the deserts contain well-written critique and characterisation. Her notes were used in her daughter Judith’s diary, ‘The Authentic Arabian Horse’, in 1945. The equestrian Lady certainly had a good eye for confirmation and has proven to be an avid breeder during their pilgrimage across the Middle East. In 1882, they opened a second stable, the Shaykh ‘Ubayd, in 1882 just outside Cairo. By now, she was fluent in Arabic and the culture had a profound impact on her. She happily accepted the foreign customs and would often dress in middle eastern clothing, much to her husband’s disagreement.’

References:
The Vintage News [web]. Robinson, Wayward Women 6.

Provenance: With small booksellers label of Edward Baker to each volume.

Octavo, two volumes (book size 21x14.7cm), pp. xxxi [3] 273 [1]; ix [3] 283 [1] 24 (publisher’s catalogue dated October, 1880). In publisher’s pictorial grey-green cloth, lettered and decorated in gilt and black to spine and front board which also shows a gilt vignette of flag bearing rider on camel, rear panel with top and bottom twin borders in blind, brown coated endpapers.
  Condition: Very good, light wear to corners and spine ends, gentle soiling to covers, foxing to endpapers prelims and lighter to page edges, as commonly encountered, light damp stain to lower corner of frontis and title page in volume I, short stub tears to folding map.   Ref: 111489   Price: HK$ 12,000