Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates by BLUNT, Lady Anne - 1879: By Lady Anne Blunt. Edited, with a Preface and Some Account of the Arabs and their Horses by W[ilfrid]. S[cawen]. B[lunt]. With Map and Sketches by the Author.

London: John Murray, 1879. BLUNT, Wilfrid Scawen. . Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates. By Lady Anne Blunt. Edited, with a Preface and Some Account of the Arabs and their Horses by W[ilfrid]. S[cawen]. B[lunt]. With Map and Sketches by the Author. London: John Murray, 1879.

First edition. Two octavo volumes (7 15/16 x 5 1/4 inches; 200 x 135 mm). xvii, [3], 346; vii, [3], 283, [1, blank], [32, advertisements] pp. Complete with twelve engraved plates (including two frontispieces), one colored folding map entitled "A Map of the Euphrates District" and a folding chart of Arabian Thoroughbreds.

Publisher's full red cloth. Front boards of each volume decoratively stamped with black ink and a gilt figure on a horse. Spines stamped in black and lettered in gilt. Back boards stamped in blind. Top edges uncut. Dark blue coated endpapers. Cloth with some minor dust soiling and rubbing. Spines slightly darkened. Front inner hinge of volume I with hairline crack, front inner hinge of volume II, just starting with hairline crack. Previous owner's bookplate on front free endpaper of volume I. Overall a very good copy.

Lady Anne Blunt was a traveller and breeder of Arab horses, and the granddaughter of Lord Byron. "With [her husband] Blunt she travelled extensively in the Middle East: her scientific interests are manifest in the mass of aneroid readings, barometric pressures, and compass bearings in her journal entries of their travels in the Arabian deserts. There she found happiness, and her numerous journals give a fascinating account of their experiences. Written simply as a private daily record, they provide frank insights into every aspect of her life, including her views on the political events in which her husband was involved...In 1882 the Blunts purchased a 37 acre walled garden outside Cairo...ady Anne became fluent in Arabic, and the insights she gained into the people and their customs ensured an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Bedouin and their horses. She also translated original Arab texts, two of which were put into verse by Blunt and published in England. She spent many years compiling a book on Arabian horses, but died just before its completion; happily much of this work is incorporated in the classic work by her daughter, Judith, Lady Wentworth, The Authentic Arabian Horse (1945). Two travel books, The Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates (2 vols., 1879) and Pilgrimage to Nejd (2 vols., 1881), despite appearing under Lady Anne's name, were not written by her. Purporting to be extracts from her journals, whole sections describing their travels were rewritten by Blunt." (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography).

HBS 67910.

$2,000.