RIDING TO THE TIGRIS

“Riding to the Tigris”
by Freya Stark,

with THIRTY-NINE wonderful vintage photographic illustrations and a title page wood engraving by Reynolds Stone.

It was published by John Murray, of London, in 1959

(date of copyright) and is the FIRST EDITION.

Her journey, on horseback, between Lake Van and Jizre in south east Turkey, followed in the footsteps of the Roman armies who crossed the mountains under Lucullus in the first century BC, through the desolate and mountainous Hakkiari, and down to the river Tigris.

Dame Freya Madeleine Stark, DBE (b. 1893, Paris, France - d. 1993, Asolo, Italy) was a British travel writer. She was not only one of the first Western women to travel through the Arabian deserts (Hadhramaut), but she often travelled solo into areas where few Europeans, let alone women, had ever been.

The contents include:

· The Hakkiari

· Diyarbekr to Lake Van

· Van

· The Great Zab Valley

· Of Julamerk Which is Now Hakkari

· The Vali’s Bezique

· The Highland Road

· The Yaila of Soma

· Night in a Kurdish Garden

· Ride to Dirahini

· The Ride to Ulu Dere

· The Centre of the Mountains

· The Tigris Watershed

· Tigris and the Ten Thousand

· Note on Place-Names

· Index

The book measures 9 inches x 6.25 inches.

The 114 pages are hand-cut to the bottoms, and are nice and neat. The binding is good with no missing pages (one set of illustrations between pages 36/7 is loose and one plate including the Zakho Bridge [or Delal Bridge, Zakho, Iraq] is partially loose).

The original buckram cloth hardback cover is sound, with minor wear and is a little faded (there is a vintage Boots Booklovers Library shield sticker on the front cover but no stickers/stamps inside the book and no missing endpapers). The gold on the front board is good, but is dull to the faded spine.

A good reading copy of this wonderfully illustrated vintage FIRST EDITION.