The Empty Quarter, Being a Description of the Great South Desert of Arabia Known as Rub' al Khali
New York: Henry Holt and Company 1933. First American Edition. xxiv, 433, [1] pages. 8vo. Publisher's blue cloth with black spine lettering. Four previous owner indications on front endpapers (gift inscription from 1936, ex-libris bookplate, signature and one other). Front hinge cracked with webbing showing but still sound. Corners bumped, some light overall wear to the binding. Foldout plate of the Meteorite craters opposite page 180, and two folding maps in rear of Arabia. Remnants of front flap laid in, lacking the balance of the original dust jacket as normal. Illustrated throughout with mechanically reproduced photographs from the journey. Very Good. Cloth. [29064]
First published in London in the same year.
"The description of Mr. Philby's remarkable journey through the Great Desert of Southern Arabia, admirably told, is a fascinating narrative of ninety days of travel in the most inhspitable regions of a barrent land. By far the greater part of the 1,800 miles of his route lay through distribcts never scientifically explored, and only known to the wandering camel owners and raiders of the waste. For the last 350 miles he and his hardy companions dared a region unknown even to his Arab guides, and in nine days cross the most lifeless and waterless regions of 'The Empty Quarter' for the first time in history from east to west...The expedition took great risks in its defiance of a region which the very ravens deserted. But their courageous endurance, and the quality of their splendid camels from Oman, brought them through....Mr. Philby has crowed fourteen years of travel and study with one of the boldest feats in the enthralling history of Arabian exploration." ... The Empty Quarter brings to the armchair adventurer with breath-taking immediacy the vivid reality of the expedition" (from the front flap)
"Harry St John Bridger Philby, CIE (3 April 1885 – 30 September 1960), also known as Jack Philby or Sheikh Abdullah, was a British Arabist, adviser, explorer, writer, and a colonial intelligence officer who served as an advisor to King Abdulaziz al-Saud, the founder of Saudi Arabia." (Wikipedia)
Price: $175.00