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STARK, Freya.
Baghdad Sketches.
First UK edition, expanded from the Baghdad Times edition of 1932 and with the addition of a selection of the author's superb photographs. Series of sketches intended "to give a picture of daily life" in the city where Stark had moved in 1929, and where "she went slumming in Arab clothing and was an outsider among priggish British expatriates. She gained acceptance after adventurous journeys to Lurestan and the Alamut district of Mazandaran, and the War Office made maps from her observations... In 1933 Stark returned to London to receive accolades as a female traveller. She was awarded the Back grant from the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) and was the first woman to receive the Burton medal of the Royal Asiatic Society" (ODNB).
Octavo. Original turquoise cloth, title gilt to the spine, "signature" gilt to the upper board. With the dust jacket. Frontispiece and 50 other plates from Stark's photographs, 10 line-drawn sketches to the text by E. N. Prescott, double-page map. Unclipped jacket a little rubbed and with a few splits, but overall a very good copy.
