Home / Browse / Travel & Exploration / In Unknown Arabia.
CHEESMAN, Major R. E.
In Unknown Arabia.
With a foreword by Major-General Sir Percy Z. Cox.
Publisher: London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1926
Stock code: 62435
Price: £500 Currency Conversion
First Edition. Cheesman encountered Sir Percy Cox when serving with the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force, a shared interest in ornithology, "Together they undertook to collect the avifauna of Iraq …While Cox was high commissioner in Iraq, Cheesman was his private secretary (1920–23). He was elected to the British Ornithologists' Club in 1919, a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1920, and a corresponding member of the Zoological Society of London in 1921" (ODNB). His geographical work began in 1921 when "he was placed in charge of charting the western shore of the Gulf of Salwah" (Howgego), and in 1923-4 "he spent eleven weeks at Al Hufuf, after which he proceeded south to become the first European to reach the remote oasis of Jabrin, fixing its precise position, mapping large areas of surrounding desert and identifying the site of ancient Gerra." For this work, which is the subject of the present account, he was awarded the RGS Gill Memorial Medal. Ownership inscription dated 1939 of G. Heslop Harrison, state entomologist of Iraq, to the front free endpaper.
Octavo. Original dark green cloth over bevelled boards, title gilt to spine, gilt block of camel and rider to the upper board, top edge gilt. Frontispiece and 32 other plates, 2 full-page maps to the text, large folding coloured map at the rear. A little rubbed, spine slightly crumpled head and tail, light toning, foxing to the fore-edge with minimal marginal encroachment, short tear to the stub of the folding map.
