The letters of Gertrude Bell in 2 volumes

1927 first editions. Ex-library copies but still in neat condition. R65 postage in SA.

Frontispiece to each and 30 other plates in all, folding map of Persia at the rear of Volume II. First edition. Uncommon in the first edition, rarely encountered in the jackets. "Bell's adult life divided into three phases. In the first, during the 1890s, contemporaries saw her as 'an accomplished young lady of good family and brilliant intellectual gifts.' But dissatisfied with the conventional role of domesticity and philanthropy assigned to well-to-do, unmarried women, she turned to independent travel, first in the Alps, then in the Middle East, with the intellectual dimensions of archaeological discovery and political observation. The latter enabled her to assume a public role as the First World War and the end of Ottoman rule in Arab lands created an official outlet for her expertise. At her death she was commemorated as a brilliant public servant, who helped to shape the post-war settlement in the Middle East and in particular the creation of the kingdom of Iraq. H. St J. Philby called her 'the maker of Iraq' and reflected that if Feisal's kingdom survived the vicissitudes of time, 'it will stand forth in history a monument to her genius, to the versatility of her knowledge and influence, and to the practical idealism tempered with honest opportunism which were the outstanding characteristics of a remarkable Englishwoman.