Books by Gertrude Bell

During World War I, Georgina Howell worked her way up from spy to army major to become one of the most powerful woman in the British Empire. After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, she was instrumental in drawing the borders that define the region today, including creating an independent Iraq. This book deals with her life and work.

"Palace and Mosque at Ukhai¿ir - A Study in Early Mohammadan Architecture" is a 1914 work by Gertrude Bell that explores the origins and history of Islamic architecture. In this volume, she has brought together materials that relate to the earliest phases of Mohammadan architecture in order to consider and analyse the circumstances under which it arose and the roots from whence it sprang. Contents include: "Q¿air, Mudj¿ah, And 'A¿shân", "Qär-I-Shîrîn", "Genesis Of The Early Mohammadan Palace", "The Façade", "The Mosque", "The Date Of Ukhai¿ir", "Ukhai¿ir, arch construction", "Ukhai¿ir, arch construction", "Ukhai¿ir, south side of court B", etc. Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell, CBE (1868-1926) was an English writer, political officer, traveller, archaeologist, and administrator. She became an important policy-maker in the British Empire as a result of her extensive knowledge and contacts, which she built up through her numerous travels in Mesopotamia, Greater Syria, Asia Minor, and Arabia. Other notable works by this author include: "Poems from the Divan of Hafiz" (1892), "The Desert and the Sown" (1907), and "Mountains of the Servants of God" (1910). This classic work is being republished now in a new edition with specially curated introductory material.

Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell, CBE (1868-1926) was an English writer, political officer, traveller, archaeologist, and administrator. She became an important policy-maker in the British Empire as a result of her extensive knowledge and contacts, which she built up through her numerous travels in Mesopotamia, Greater Syria, Asia Minor, and Arabia. Contents include: "Tell A¿mar To Buseirah", "Buseirah To Hît", "The Parthian Stations Of Isidorus Of Charax", "Hît To Kerbelâ", "The Palace Of Ukhei¿ir", "Kerbelâ To Baghdâd", "Baghdâd To Mô¿ul", "The Ruins Of Sâmarrâ", "Mô¿ul To Zâkhô", "Zâkhô To Diyârbekr", "Diyârbekr To Konia", etc. Other notable works by this author include: "Poems from the Divan of Hafiz" (1892), "The Desert and the Sown" (1907), and "Mountains of the Servants of God" (1910). This classic work is being republished now in a new edition with specially curated introductory material.

'You may rely upon one thing - I'll never engage in creating kings again; it's too great a strain.' Gertrude Bell - traveller, scholar, archaeologist, spy - was one of the most powerful figures in the Middle East in the 20th century. With T.E. Lawrence, she was a significant force behind the Arab Revolt and was responsible for creating the boundaries of the modern state of Iraq, as well as installing the Hashemite dynasty, with Faisal I as king, in Iraq and Transjordan. Her knowledge of the Arab world was forged through decades of travel and the relationships she built across Arabia with tribal leaders and kings, who referred to her as Umm al Mu'mineen, or Mother of the Faithful. In the winter of 1906, she undertook an often-dangerous journey through Greater Syria - Damascus, Jerusalem, Beirut, Antioch and Alexandretta - and her portrait of the landscapes, people and customs of a part of the world that very few had explored at the time is now a classic of travel writing. Bell's Syria illuminates a region that continues to preoccupy us today as well as portraying the unique life of a remarkable, still-controversial and ultimately tragic woman.

'Are we the same, I wonder, when all our surroundings, association, acquaintances are changed? I conclude that it is not the person who danced with you at Mansfield St who writes to you today from Persia. Yet there are dregs, English sediment at the bottom of my sherbet, and perhaps they flavour it more than I think. I write to you of Persia: I am not me, that is my only excuse. I am merely pouring out for you some of what I have received in the last two months.'When Gertrude Bell's uncle was appointed Minister in Tehran in 1891, she declared that the great ambition of her life was to visit Persia. Several months later, she did. And so began a lifetime of travel and a lifelong enchantment with what she saw as the romance of the East, which evolved into a deep understanding of its cultures and people. This vivid and impressionistic series of sketches, her first foray into writing, is an evocative meditation that moves between Persia's heroic past and its long decline; the public face of Tehran and the otherworldly 'secret, mysterious life of the East', the lives of its women, its lush, enclosed gardens; from the bustling cities to the lonely wastelands of Khorasan.

'Persian Pictures' is both travelogue and meditation, an elegiac and beautifully observed account of a spellbinding land.