Description

First edition, reprinted and reissued in the 15s. edition, the dustjacket and size as in the first issue, the binding of a darker colour. Complete with over 80 illustrations, photographs and diagrams, three maps including the folding map at rear, preserved in a pocket tipped to the pastedown. Tall 8vo, publisher’s original sienna polished buckram lettered in gilt on spine, in the very scarce original dustjacket. xxix, 397 pp. A very fine copy of the book, bright, clean, fresh and especially well preserved. The jacket complete and in excellent condition with only minimal evidence of age. A rare survival in the original dustjacket.

Edizione: bertram thomas' fine book is both scarce and important. in the spring of 1931, the story was made public of thomas’ exploration of the last large blank space on the map. he traversed the “empty quarter” on camel-back, across the vast and unknown desert of south arabia. arabia felix is the story that journey, the first by any white man, crossing from the indian ocean to the persian gulf.<br> t.e. lawrence said of thomas that “few men are able to close an epoch.we cannot know the first man who walked the inviolate earth for newness’ sake: but thomas is the last; and he did his journey in the antique way, by pain of his camel’ legs, single-handed, at his own time and cost.” and for his success he received the gold medal of the royal geographical society of both england and antwerp and the burton medal of the royal asiatic society.