The Arab of Mesopotamia, a compellingly clean copy with contemporary Mesopotamian provenance and a contemporary photograph, housed in a solander case.
Basrah: Printed by E. G. Pearson at the Times Press, Bombay, and published by the Superintendent, Government Press, Basrah, 1917. First edition. Hardcover. This first edition of The Arab of Mesopotamia is triply compelling – for condition, provenance, and curiosity. The work was published in Basrah in 1917 to inform British imperial considerations in the Middle East during and after the First World War. The author, Gertrude Lowthian Bell (1868-1926) was the intriguing and influential adventurer, scholar, writer, and diplomat who, like her contemporary T. E. “Lawrence of Arabia”, did much to shape the Middle East during and after the First World War.
Condition and provenance
Copies of this small, 202-page volume do not tend to weather well. The workmanlike green cloth binding is prone to wear and toning, the binding itself often splits at the gutters, and the contents are on cheap stock prone to both brittleness and heavy toning. This particular copy is unusual thus, very good in the original green cloth, which remains tight, square, and unfaded with only minor blemishes and light wear to extremities. The contents are inevitably age-toned, but only modestly, with no apparent spotting. The sole previous ownership marks are intriguing, contemporary, and appropriately Mesopotamian. In what we presume is the same hand and ink, we find an indecipherable name inked on the front free endpaper and “Amara, May 20 ‘18”. Amarah (or Amara) is located in south-eastern Iraq, beside the Tigris River, south of Baghdad. Laid in is yet another curiosity – a vintage 3.75 x 2.5 inch photograph – presumably contemporary to the publication and owner inscription - of a horse rider in Arab dress. This copy is protected within a green cloth Solander case with gilt spine print and felt-lined interior.
The edition
A brief, anonymous Preface presents the contents as “… essays on subjects relating to Mesopotamia, written during 1916 by persons with special knowledge… in a convenient and permanent form.” Pages 101-202 titled “Asiatic Turkey” are attributed to Bell’s authorship; a second Preface, this one initialed “G. L. B.” presents contents “written at the request of the War Office during June and July, 1917.” Subsequent scholarship indicates that the entirety of the volume was authored by Bell, including the 10 essays spanning pages 1-100.
“the uncrowned Queen of Arabia”
By her mid-twenties Gertrude Bell developed an intellectual and emotional fascination with the Middle East. “Outstanding literary and linguistic skills” coupled with “determination, bravery, physical strength, and endurance” invigorated contributions to travel literature, translation, archaeology, and architecture, eventually evolving into engagement in the region’s socio-political currents.
By the First World War, Bell became “a voluntary agent of Britain’s interests in the Middle East” and assumed her defining role – as “a woman trying to break one of the most challenging barriers of her time: the physical conquest of the desert and the decoding of the moral and ethical code of its inhabitants.”
The Arab of Mesopotamia speaks to Bell’s influence in shaping the post-WWI structure of the Middle East, particularly the foundation of Iraq. After joining the Cairo Arab Bureau in 1916, Bell was annexed to the military intelligence department in Basrah. Her articles for Hogarth’s Arabian Report and the famous Arab Bulletin ranked among “the best sources of information on the events in the Middle East during the war.” When the Turks lost Baghdad in early 1917, Bell engaged in Mesopotamia’s civil administration. She became oriental secretary under the British high commissioner when an Arab provisional government was established in Baghdad in late 1920, a post she held until her death in 1926.
Bell influenced decisions at the March 1921 Cairo conference of British Middle East officials, and “played a significant role in securing the throne for Feisal ibn Hussein” later that year “and in preparing the electoral law that provided the king and the British high commissioner with the authority to administer the country…”
References: ODNB; Howell, Daughter of the Desert. Item #008901
Price: $2,600.00