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Titfc: F.REXA...S.XARK

Abstract 350 words maximum: (PLEASE TYPE)

Dame Freya Stark (1893-1993) was famous as an explorer of remote Middle Eastern areas, as a travel writer and was accredited with a deep understanding of the Arab mind. She received many awards and distinctions, commonly reserved for men. She wrote an autobiography, detailing her achievements, which revealed a self-made writer and explorer. She depicted a delicate invalid, yet her reputation was as an intrepid explorer; her writing career was an immediate success; her views on the Arab mind were courted at the highest level. Three of her friends wrote biographies about her, but all were based upon her own autobiography.

Throughout her biographies there was a thin thread of subversive comment. The dissonance required explanation. My examination of her later-published letters result in an alternative story. She was not self-made, there was an unsuspected network of relations, friends and circumstances which had contributed to her otherwise inexplicably successful travelling, writing and "political" career. Her actual exploration was found to amount to very little - very brief and the product of good advice as much as anything else. An exploration of her health problems revealed them to be largely illusory.

After examination of Stark's attitude towards "Orientalism" is defined and examined in detail, it is revealed that she understood little and sympathized even less with middle class Arabs. She had close acquaintance with simple living, whilst on her travels, and that was rare among the English. She was also able to communicate with local people, due to her ready Arabic. This again was rare.

Aspects of her life passed over in silence, such as her relationships with men and her marriage, are examined in Appendix 1: no definite conclusions can be drawn, and she remains an enigma, even probably to herself, as far as they are concerned. Unpublished letters, comprising the correspondence of Freya Stark and her estranged husband Stewart Perowne, (1901-1989) colonial and foreign office official and author, to Sir Harry Luke, (1884-1969), colonial statesman and author, are in the Special Collections of the Australian Defence Force Academy Library. Those of Stark are transcribed and edited in Appendix 2. Her reputation for penning masterly prose at the edge of the path, during the traveller's lunch break, is dispelled: editing was heavy, mainly performed by herself, and later improvements not infrequent.

My conclusion is that Stark was a consummate mistress of propaganda and subterfuge which extended to every detail of her life. Indefatigable letter writing played a large part in the creation of self. Among positive achievements was her remarkable travel writing, which is compared with other notable writers of the Middle East, and her rapport with the poorer Arabs. Many of my conclusions are supported by a recently published biography.

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FREYA STARK - CREATIVE INVALID, TRAVEL WRITER AND AUTOBIOGRAPHER

A Study of the autobiographical and travel writings of Dame Freya Stark 1893- 1993

by Christine Ann Campbell, M.A.

A dissertation submitted for the degree of Master of Arts (Honours) in the Department of English, University College, University of New South Wales, Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra.

August, 1993,

301572

Abstract

Dame Freya Stark (1893-1993) is famous for her explorations of remote Middle Eastern areas and for her travel books and was widely acclaimed for her deep understanding of the Arab mind. As a result, she received many of the awards and distinctions which were usually conferred on men. She wrote an autobiography which depicted a socially awkward and impoverished woman, and a delicate invalid. It is not clear from her autobiography how she achieved what she did and neither is it apparent how her travels came to be treated with deferential respect by the media and by men of influence. TTiree of her friends wrote biographies about her, but all are based upon uncritical acceptance of her autobiography. Despite their apparent acquiescence in her view of herself, the biographies do contain a thin thread of subversive comment, and this encouraged me to make further investigations about how she had achieved her reputation.

My examination of Freya Stark's eight volumes of letters reveal that she possessed few advantages indicating likely success as an explorer. She enjoyed adventuring, and on this her reputation rests. She was not self-made but forced by single-mindedness of purpose, lack of position and unmarried state to accept what help she could. There is a network of relations, friends and circumstances which contributed to her successful travelling, writing and war-time political career. She did not select exploration areas by inspired good fortune but as the result of consultation with knowledgeable experts who encouraged her and assisted her travels. Her actual explorations were cursory. Sickness on her travels was more often than not the result of lack of rest and injudicious self-medication. Invalidism was a subterfuge, both in ordinary living and on her travels. The Second World War allowed her to achieve a measure of success as a propagandist but her position in the political world remained marginal, despite her reputation.

Her understanding of the minds of Arab peoples might more properly be presented as a formidable ability to manipulate people. She lived with simple people on her brief travels and she spoke Arabic, however haltingly. This was rare among die English, and she was as much criticized as admired in the local expatriate community, where her unmarried state and poverty were viewed as social problems.

Aspects of her life passed over in near silence, such as her relationships with men, or indeed with women, and her late and unsuccessful marriage, are examined in Appendix 1. No definite conclusions can be drawn. However, her reputation for penning scintillating prose at the edge of the track whilst on her explorations, is dispelled: the prose was sometimes written whilst travelling, but the editing of her letters is heavy, and was mainly if not always performed by herself, whilst retrospective improvements were not infrequent. Stark enjoyed the reputation which the press created for her because it was convenient and brought its own rewards. Her travel writing remains popular and is compared, favourably, with other notable writers of the Middle East. I have attempted a more balanced view than that offered by her supporters or a recently published biography.

Unpublished letters, comprising the correspondence of Freya Stark and her estranged husband Stewart Perowne (1901-1989), colonial and foreign office official and author, with Sir Harry Luke (1884-1969), colonial statesman and author, are in the Special Collections of the Australian Defence Force Academy Library. Those of Stark are presented in an annoted edition in Appendix 2.

Acknowledgement

Thanks are due to Dr Paul Eggert for his assistance and support in the preparation of this thesis.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract 2

Acknowledgement 3

Table of Contents 4

Chronology, map and photograph of Freya Stark 5

Introduction 12

Chapter 1. Freya Stark and the Creation of a Self 18

Chapter 2. Divine Discontent and Psychoneurosis -The Profile of an Explorer 40

Chapter 3. "Orientalism": Approaches to the East in Freya Stark,

Charles Doughty, Gertrude Bell, and T. E. Lawrence 55

Chapter 4. Freya Stark's First Response to the East 66

Chapter 5. Freya Stark's More Mature Response towards the East 75

Chapter 6. Reviews and Reputation 87

Conclusion 106

Bibliography 111

Appendix 1. Biographical Puzzles and the Enigmatic Freya Stark 126

Appendix 2. The A.D.F.A. Letters. Correspondence of Freya Stark with Sir Harry Luke 142

STARK'S TRAVELS IN SYRIA

STARK'S TRAVELS IN SOUTHERN ARABIA AND NORTH-WEST PERSIA

CHRONOLOGY

1893. Paris, 31 January. Birth of Freya Madeleine Stark, elder daughter of English artistic couple, Robert (18534931) and Flora (1861-1942) Stark. Peripatetic life style.

1894. May. Birth of Vera Stark, younger sister, at Asolo near Venice, Italy. Stark jealous and dominated sister.

1901. Mother left England without husband and went to North Italy with children. Winter in Devon with paternal grandmother.

1902-1918. Permanent residence in Dronero, Piedmont, Italy, home-town of Mario di Roascio (bom c. 1879), mother's friend and business associate. Claimed ostracism by local families due to mother's presumed intimacy with di Roascio.

1906, January. Scalp and eyelid injured in loom accident in di Roascio's coir matting factory. Pioneering skin grafting but infliction of physical and psychological scarring. Read a lot, wrote a little. Spent time with father in Devon. Claimed (doubtfully) that she unwillingly in charge of family housekeeping.

1909. Worked in office of di Roascio's factory, but sister Vera failed to take over housekeeping.

1910. Move to di Roascio's new home. Stark believed (doubtfully) that di Roascio proposed marriage to her and that she had rejected him. Stark's mother the object of her devotion. Studied for University entrance by correspondence.

1911. Visited Herbert Young, her father's Australian artist friend, at Asolo. Father moved to Canada permanently, to farm. Stark to England to take secondary examination.

1912-1914. Given two thousand pounds capital by father. Stayed with friends of mother. Viva (Genevieve) and Harry Jeyes, assistant editor of the Morning Standard, Studied first English and then history at Bedford College, University of London. Unsuccessful and left after two years. Met William Paton Ker (1855-1923), scholar and writer, a lecturer at University College and later a Professor at Oxford, who encouraged her to write. Vera engaged to di Roascio, December, 1912. Married Easter 1913. Stark felt unattractive, a social failure and experienced deep depression on twenty-first birthday. Walked in the Val d'Aosta, Italy, and climbed with W.P. Ker and friends. Visited Venice area with mother. Kept diary.

1914-1916. Trained as nurse at St. Ursula's Clinic, Bologna. Di Roascio forced her engagement to Guido Ruata, a bacteriologist aged thirty-eight, and she resigned from nursing. Fell ill early summer, 1915. Mild typhoid diagnosed in winter. Marriage postponed, but engagement broken off by Ruata in 1916. Baron Gabriel de Bottini de Ste Agnes of Dronero and Turin was mooted as prospective alternative suitor in September

1916. Returned to England. First mention of writer Margaret Jourdain (1876-1951), whose debt to her writing career she never acknowledged.

1917. Six week's training as unpaid nursing assistant in Voluntary Aid Detachment (V.A.D.). Joined prestigious Trevelyan Ambulance Unit in Italy, August. Kept diary. Retreat in October. Returned to Dronero.

1918. Father bought her market garden, UArma, at Mortola, Ventimiglia, near the French border, where she earned sporadic living for the next few years. Mother unwilling companion.

1919-1922. Financial troubles and quarrels. Mother forced by Stark to sue di Roascio for return of capital and for payment for years of work in factory. Received money from W.P. Ker to pay for house-improvement debts. Start of career of financial improvidence, especially over housing. 1921. Learnt Arabic in San Remo, Italy. Studied privately at School of Oriental Studies in London.

1922. April. Gastric trouble, lasting until 1926. Took Arabic examination in London. Mother (she claimed) suggested Colonello Biancheri, elderly but wealthy neighbour, as possible suitor for Stark.

1923. Start of long friendship with wealthy younger woman, Venetia Buddicom, (d. 1969) of Penbedw, Flintshire. Met in Bordighera where Buddicom's parents had house and yacht. June, took further Arabic examination in London. July. Death of W.P. Ker whilst climbing with her in Switzerland. September, walk in Pyrenees with Venetia Buddicom.

1924. Spring, six weeks in Rome, partly with mother, Colonello Biancheri, and his brother. Arabic lessons in Rome. Gastric ulcers, requiring restricted diet and rest, which she combined, suspiciously, with ski-ing and climbing. Winter, 1924, operation for ulcer.

1925. At San Vito, in Dolomites, recuperating. Illness worse in autumn. Claimed that Gabriel de Bottini de Ste Agnes proposed but that she rejected him, anticipating further entreaties. He married another woman shortly after. Probably another spurious suitor. Colonello Biancheri died. Experienced "out of body" feeling after fainting. Baptized in Presbyterian church (her father's religion) at Bordhigera.

1926. Sick in London. Took further Arabic lessons. Herbert Young (d. 1941) offered to will her his property in Asolo, near Venice, Italy, later called Casa Freia, as permanent home for Stark and her mother. Lawsuit against di Roascio concluded in mother's favour but little money ever received. 23 September, sister died of septicemia, leaving four young children.

1927. Attempts to obtain work in the Middle East failed. Mother started silk-weaving factory in Asolo. November, travelled to Brumana, Syria, with introductions to missionaries, to practice Arabic. They were shocked by her free behaviour.

1927-1928. Confessed to unhappy love affair which lasted seven years. She said that she fell out of love in 1934, after a cosmetic facial operation. [But see below, 1929.]

1928. March-April. Stayed with native family in Damascus, then journeyed to Jebel Druse, Syria, in company of Venetia Buddicom, as related in Letters from Syria (1942). Enchanted by East and first Arab sheikhs but Buddicom described journey as "rather a grim little trip". First of many scholarly journal articles published, on Druses of Syria. Visited father in Canada, October, 1928-February, 1929. Buddicom damaged neck that winter and could not join Stark in Baghdad in 1929. (Never mentioned by Stark.)

1929-1936. Articles published in The Comhill, Illustrated London News, Spectator, The Times, Geographical Magazine. Later she wrote for Geographical Journal and the Journal of Hellenic Studies. Her early explorations included detailed ethnographic and geographical observation and mapping, due to Captain Holt's influence (see 1929).

1929. February, referred to discovery of her suppressed emotions. September, to Beirut. October, to Baghdad. Met influential people, including Captain Vyvyan Holt (1896-1960), political adviser, Arabist and traveller. He encouraged her travels, suggested languages, areas. Love for him was not reciprocated, though she continued to hope for four years. [October, 1929-January, 1934]

1930. On Holt's suggestion to Hamadan, Persia in April, to learn language. May, in deep depression, journey to Alamut. Armed with suitable introductions met owners of Rock of Alamut. Corrected map of area. Saw unexplored castle. Found castle of Qasir Khan or Alamut, described in The Valleys of the Assassins (1934) and visited castle of Nevisar Shah at Garmrud. Began to make name. September-December, with father in Canada and bored.

1931. First met Sir Sydney Cockerell (1867-1962), literary executor of prominent artists and writers and director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. He later actively encouraged her autobiography. June, Baghdad. August-October in Luristan, N.W. Persia, where she found Assassins' castle of Lamiasar or Lambesar, in Rudbar, whose site was previously unknown. On way to mountain called Throne of Solomon fell sick, and diagnosed dysentery and malaria (doubtfully). Overdosed on quinine. Corrected map of Sardab Rud area for Survey of India and explored mound of Kalar Dasht, a vanished city. October, unsuccessful search for possible site of bronzes and skulls in Luristan. Father died in August. Returned to Baghdad, late October. Constructed map of exploration area, sent to the Survey of India. Financial problems. December, worked for Baghdad Times due to Holt's good offices.

1932. April-March, 1933, worked for Baghdad Times. Wrote articles which were collected for publication as Baghdad Sketches (1932). Brought to the attention of Royal Geographical Society. August, Judge Eric Maxwell gave her first driving lessons and offered her unwanted sexual attentions. September-October, notorious but unsuccessful treasure hunt in Luristan. Stark escorted out of area. Later described in The Valleys of the Assassins. Fame established.

1933. Left Baghdad in March for Amman and Jerusalem. Received Back Grant from the

R.G.S. for her travels in Luristan. B.B.C. and press interviews. Genius for publicity, introductions and influential people. First meeting with Jock Murray aged 22, who became her publisher, supporter and lifelong friend. Never out of public eye again. Lectured to Royal Central Asian Society.

1934. January. Operation on face to improve looks. Finally accepted Vyvyan Holt's disinterest. October, first woman to receive the Burton Medal of the Royal Asiatic Society. The Valleys of the Assassins published by John Murray. December, first journey to the Hadhramaut area of Southern Arabia, armed with introductions from Lord Halifax of Colonial Office to Colonel Maurice Lake of Political Secretariat; Resident, Sir Bernard Reilly; Imam of Yemen and others. First meeting with influential Anton Besse (d.l951), later founder of St. Antony's College, Oxford, in Aden. He played a large part in organizing her journey.

1935. 13 January-16 March, journey to isolated Wadi Do'an, to explore Southern Arabian Incense Routes. Succumbed to outbreak of measles with complications due to failure to rest adequately. Took series of rare photographs of area and its people. Evacuated by R.A.F. to Aden hospital in fanfare of publicity, claiming heart failure. Wrote The Southern Gates of Arabia. Idyllic summer with Besse family at Le Paradou, near St Tropez, France.

1936. January-May, rested at Welsh home of Venetia Buddicom. Met eminent English archaeologist, Gertrude Caton Thompson (b. 1888). Quarrelled with Buddicom over Besse's attentions to her friend, which Stark jealously resented. Stark in love with Besse. He rejected her. Buddicom probably broke with Stark, though reverse was implied. Love affair with mystery person in London, lasting for a year or two. The Southern Gates of Arabia published. Still feted and received Mungo Medal from Royal Scottish Geographical society.

1937. Enlarged edition of Baghdad Sketches published by John Murray. February, Baghdad. March in Persian Gulf, probably uninvited, to stay with Gerald de Gaury (b. 1897) Kuwait Resident. Travelled in Middle East until mid-summer. October in Egypt, then to Aden, with archaeologist Gertrude Caton Thompson and Elinor Gardner, a geologist. First meeting with Stewart Perowne (1901-1989), her future husband, A.D.C. to Governor, in Aden. November-March, on three-woman expedition financed by Lord Wakefield to the Hadhramaut, described in A Winter in Arabia (1940). Backing of R.G.S. Quarrels between Stark and Caton Thompson. Both difficult women, but Stark publicly vindictive. December 9-26, Stark flown to Aden hospital with throat infection. Returned to renewed sickness.

1938. January 27, a second air evacuation organized but countermanded by Stark. March 4-22, explored ancient Incense route to sea on solo trip, enlarging upon map of area of ancient port of Cana. Aden hospital with aftermath of previously unnoticed dengue fever. Seen in the Hadhramaut, an incomparable book of pictures, published. Press attention, due to link with Lord Halifax and government.

1939. Explored Crusader and Assassins' castles in Syria. Claimed (doubtfully) proposal of marriage from young man, Donald Lennox-Boyd (1907-1939) who died in April, before she could reply. August, in London as South Arabian expert for the Ministry of

8

Information. November, Assistant Information Officer to Stewart Perowne in Aden.

1939-1945. Various positions in Baghdad, Egypt and Aden, connected with propaganda for Ministry of Information. She was also a temporary Attache in Baghdad. Organized the Brotherhood of Freedom, designed to remain friendly with Britain after war.

1940. Started to write autobiography, in Aden. Bought car in Cairo. Sporadic driving lessons, 1932-1971, but never capable.

1941. Warned by ambassador in Baghdad, and friendly police, to avoid Embassy on return from Persian holiday, but went anyway, to be involved in siege of Baghdad Embassy for month of May. Spent long hours resting in Holt's office. Wrote diary. Mother and Herbert Young imprisoned for three weeks, due to Stark's anti-Fascist stance in Yemen and Middle East. Young died later, and Stark inherited Asolo property.

1942. Mother died in California. Received Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographic Society. Holidayed in Cyprus and started sending Sir Sydney Cockerell installments of autobiography.

1943. November, claimed suffered from peritonitis whilst on voyage to Canada en-route for anti-Zionist meetings in the U.S., held between November and ]une, 1944.

1944. In London. East is West, specially commissioned to present the Arab cause, was published.

1945. February-]uly, in New Delhi at invitation of Lady Wavell, to assist a special committee of the Women's Voluntary Service. Returned to Asolo, working for British Council in North Italy. Refurbished war-ravaged house, extravagantly. Financed largely on appeal to others.

1946. Received Freedom of Asolo. Failed to gain employment by Foreign Office.

1947. Marriage to Stewart Perowne, son of a bishop, which failed almost immediately. Sporadic correspondence and visits until 1953.

1948. In Barbados with husband briefly. Writing career in ascendancy. Found life of middle-ranking Colonial Office official irksome, and she not a celebrity in Barbados. Published Perseus in the Wind, a book of essays, to considerable acclaim.

1949. Made a Sister of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.

1950. In Benghazi, Libya, with husband briefly. Quarrels over money, colonial office housing and rebuilding. First volume of autobiography Traveller's Prelude published.

1951. In Benghazi for Christmas and New Year. More marital disharmony. Published Beyond Euphrates, the second volume of her autobiography. Received an honorary doctorate, LL.D. from Glasgow University. Royal Central Asian Society conferred Percy Sykes Memorial Medal. Visited great country houses and lunched with Queen Mother. Perowne's job in Benghazi abolished and he became United Nations' delegate on Arab affairs in Paris at Conference for three months. Stark objected to his lack of prestigious conditions.

1952. Marriage finally abandoned. His homosexuality mooted as cause, but dissatisfaction with the post-war life-style and his position probably more important. Asolo house enabled her to entertain war-time and other acquaintances. Many came, often paying for privilege (although Stark called them intimate friends) but none to reside permanently, despite her entreaties. Explored Turkey, often from yacht of David Balfour, British Consul-General for Smyrna. He was a married man and she enjoyed the gossip. (She was fifty-nine.)

1953. Published The Coast of Incense, the third volume of her autobiography. Received the C.B.E.

1954. Journey in Sicily, with first of youthful travel companions, Barclay Saunders, granddaughter of Herbert Olivier, a friend of her parents. Few enjoyed her simple and dauntingly active form of travel. She had never enjoyed solitary travel, and felt loneliness increasingly. Publication of first of Turkish trilogy, Ionia a Quest.

1956. Publication of The Lycian Shore, second book in Turkish trilogy.

1958. Publication of Alexander's Path, final book in Turkish trilogy.

1959. Publication of Riding to the Tigris, a journey in remote Eastern Turkey, mainly on horseback.

1961. Publication of Dust in the Lion's Paw, the fourth and final volume of her autobiography.

1963. Purchase of remote hill, Montoria, near Asolo in Italy. Designed large, ugly and extravagant home, despite poverty and solitary state. Attempts to sell Casa Freia fail. Failed to persuade large number of wealthy friends to buy, and to receive her as their paying guest. Huge debts. From this point on, increasingly lost control of life. The Journey's Echo published, consisting of selections made by travel writer Lawrence Durrell from Stark's writings.

1966. Rome on the Euphrates published. Exacting and final work of scholarship. Mixed reception. Casa Freia finally sold to municipality.

1968. The Zodiac Arch, a book of essays published. July in Afghanistan. Encountered another couple and shared their jeep for a fortnight.

10

1969. Space, Time and Movement in Landscape published. A limited edition of photographs taken by Stark, linked by a poem of hers and published by her Godson.

1970. The Minaret ofDjam was published, concerning her journey round Afghanistan in 1968.

1971. Received D. Litt. from Durham University. Thames & Hudson published Turkey A Sketch of Turkish History, essay by Stark, photographs by Italian, Fulvio Roiter. A Swiss woman, distressed at her lack of own transport to visit Afghanistan, gave her a Dormobile.

1974-1981. Publication of eight volumes of letters in limited edition by small publisher, Michael Russell, edited by Lucy and later her daughter, Caroline Moorehead, Stark's biographer.

1972. Dame of the British Empire.

1976. A Peak in Darien, another small book of essays published. Montoria sold and moved to small flat in Asolo, with tower nearby for books and visitors.

1977. Filmed floating down the Euphrates on raft by the B.B.C. with god-son, Mark, and Arabella Lennox-Boyd.

1981. Sister Commander of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. Filmed whilst travelling by pony in the mountains of West Nepal.

1982. Rivers of Time, a book of photographs published by William Blackwood and introduced by Alexander Maitland. The latter also wrote A Tower in the Wall, about Stark, as she looked back on her life.

1984. Municipality of Asolo presented her with keys of the City.

1988. Over the Rim of the World, joint publication of selected letters by John Murray and Michael Russell, their original publisher.

1989. Long-estranged husband Stewart Perowne died.

1993. May. Died at the age of 100, in Italy. Her publisher, John Murray wrote to me, saying that her last years were happy, although she no longer remembered the world of which she once formed so vital a part.

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INTRODUCTION

Freya Stark was one hundred years of age in January, 1993, having been made a Dame of

the British Empire in 1972, at the age of almost eighty. Although the tribute seems

somewhat belated, it was in fact merely another in a long line of honours, most of which

were commonly reserved for prominent men.

She had first gone to Syria, which was under French Mandate, in 1927-8, and had made

an unauthorized journey to an area which was under martial law, with a woman friend.

Her journey had aroused no interest in the English press. However, things changed

rapidly when the Royal Geographic Society awarded her the Back grant for exploration in

1933, as a result of a number of brief journeys in Persia. She had found or re-established

the location of Assassins' castles and re-drawn part of the map of Persia. The British War

Office approved of her map of the Assassins' Valleys, and she lectured on her discoveries.

She had also engaged in an illegal treasure hunt, and been escorted to the nearest frontier.

The English press was alerted and she was photographed, written about and invited to

speak about her experiences on the radio. She returned to re-map the area for the India

Office. Her journeys were followed by scientific articles, which were printed in the major

exploration journals, and by popular books. She became famous.

Her prestige was assured when she made two further journeys along the Ancient Incense

Routes of the Hadhramaut area (Yemen) of Southern Arabia between 1934 and 1938.

She made the first journey alone, and was self-funded. The second journey was performed

under the auspices of Lord Wakefield and she was accompanied by two respected women

scientists. Her travels were often unorthodox, as was her return journey on this occasion.

Her route was unauthorized and difficult, and she was obliged to complete it alone, since

neither woman would agree to accompany her, but she persisted, and traced an Ancient

Incense Route from inland Hureidha to the former port of Cana, which she relocated and

mapped.

These are her most significant travels and ensure her enduring fame. Even in these days of

apparently easy travel, the Southern Arabian Incense Routes are relatively inaccessible,

and Freya Stark still has something to offer in her books: a perspective upon a bygone

Arabic civilization, the remnants of which she has been one of the few privileged to

observe. As she said:

12

In these pictures is given, faintly, the harmony of a world that few will see.

It has existed, probably with little change, through the centuries that have known the rise of Europe. When the Roman roads cut the forests and swamps of England, the Arabian trader built his many-storied mansion, crowned its parapet with ibex horns, and saw them shine in the morning sun. Through the decline of Rome and the Dark Ages, through the fall of Constantinople and our Renascence, these Arabian cities, hidden by deserts and their curtain of lavas, pursued their slow decline.^

She struck a romantic chord which aroused a ready response in her readers. Her solo travels were regarded as quite remarkable feats of bravery and endurance.

She was attributed with an unusual insight into the Arab mind, as a result of which she was offered work by the Ministry of Information in Southern Arabia, Iraq and Egypt when the Second World War broke out. In fact, this was a misunderstanding of her sympathies in the Middle East. She had established a feeling of rapport not with the educated middle classes but with the under-dogs, the non-Westernized peasants, whom she witnessed being bullied by their governments into modernizing. She liked the way the peasants obstinately clung to their old and colourful native dress, weapons, manners and customs.

Introductions from friends of her mother and her relative fluency in Arabic had led her to penetrate the harems of Southern Arabia on her early travels. Now she was able to utilize that familiarity to project British propaganda films to an enthusiastic audience in the harem, reaching Sultans as well as Sultans' wives and female relatives. She had little sympathy with aspiring middle class intellectuals but propaganda was her forte and her persuasive powers enabled her to organize groups of young Arab men into cells of the Brotherhood of Freedom in Egypt and Iraq, with the intention that they should remain pro-British after the war. Her implacably anti-Zionist attitude earned her invitations to speak in the United States on the subject in 1943, and to write a book East is West (1945) to illustrate the changes which had taken place in the Arab world, drawing attention to the growth of the Arab middle classes.

If Stark is placed within the context of her times, then a more balanced picture than that revealed in her books and by her biographers emerges. She was neither the greatest nor the most successful of travellers. There had been many better. She was an adventurer rather than an explorer. Her achievements have already been decried by those who found them somehow lacking, but no one has attempted a full-scale investigation of why she is a lesser explorer. Paul Fussell virtually ignored her in Abroad (1980)2, which dealt with travel in the period 1918-1939, when Stark wrote some of her most interesting work.

Seen in the Hadhramaut. London: John Murray. 1938, p. ix Paul Fussell. Abroad: British Literary Travelling Between the Wars. New York: Oxford University Press. 1980.

13

However, all women travellers have received greater attention in the past ten years. Studies include Victorian Women Travel Writers in Africa (1982), Britannia's Daughters (1983), Wayward Women (1990) and Women's Orients (1992)^. Stark's writings remain in print and an evaluation of her place among travel writers is timely.

The focus of my study is an investigation of both her attitude towards Arabs, for which she was unjustifiably famous, and a study of how she changed over time in response to what she saw. This attitude is loosely and unsatisfactorily described as "Orientalism": and without it, no study of the region would be complete. Edward Said's contention is illustrated that: "The Orient was almost a European invention","^ as well as "a created body of theory and practice" (Said: 6) and many myths about the East are still current in the West. Mario Praz^ studied writers and artists of the Romantic period, and observed that their themes linked passion and pain, often in a real (or imagined) Oriental location. European travellers often saw the East and themselves as decadent but Stark exhibited only a tepid social carelessness, for which she is duly censured by the Baghdad and Syrian European communities.

Lisa Lowe's Critical Terrains (1991)^ is indicative of the enormous amount of attention Orientalism has received in the decade or so since Said's work was published. Even more searching questions on empire and imperial travel are pursued by Mary Louise Pratt, in Imperial Eyes (1992)7 and Billie Melman in the aforementioned Women's Orients. Clearly the subject continues to fascinate.

The reasons why women travel are unusually absorbing and Dea Birkett® observes that although many women travellers were sick at home, they were still able to make strenuous journeys abroad. Joanna Trollope identifies travel with women's search abroad for opportunities which were them denied to them at home. Stark was open about her desire to escape from domesticity: "With my teacher...! studied the Pre-lslamic Mu'allaqat, and this helped me through the months. Everyone thought it a good sick-bed occupation, but

5

Catherine Stevenson. Victorian Travel Writers in Africa. Boston: Twayne. 1982. Joanna Trollope. Britannia's Daughters: Women of the British Empire. London: Hutchinson. 1983. Jane Robinson. Wayward Women: A Guide to Women Travellers. Oxford: University Press. 1990. Billie Melman. Women's Orients: En^sh Women and the Middle East, 1718'1918. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 1992. Edward Said. Orientalism. Routledge & Kegan Paul. 1978. p 1. Mario Praz. The Romantic Agony. London New York: Oxford University Press. 1970. First published 1933. Lisa Low. Critical Terrains: French and British Orientalisms. Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press. 1991. Mary Louise Pratt. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. London & New York: Routledge. 1992. DeaBiricett. Spinsters Abroad: Victorian Lady Explorers. London: Victor Gollancz. 1991. First published Blackwell, 1989.

14

to me it was far more than that - it was escape." {Traveller's Prelude: 323)^ I first pursued

the idea that Stark was yet another woman who fell sick at home as a subterfuge, in order

to travel abroad, miraculously recovered in health: but 1 discovered that she was frequently

sick, even when abroad. This merited further investigation.

A considerable literature has arisen on mother-daughter relationships, among others. The

Lost Tradition (1980)^0; "Missing Mothers/Desiring Daughters: Framing the sight of

women"ll and more recently. Mothers & Daughters (1992)12, which contains an extensive

bibliography, the direction of current thinking being made evident by the book's sub-title.

As Joy Hooton observes in Stories of Herself When Young (1990): "the idea of the mother is

both powerful and ubiquitous in women's life-writing". ^

Stark's relationship with her mother can only be described as bad, but Stark refuses

resolutely to recognize it. She was her mother's guardian and rival, her unwilling

housekeeper, and later an overworked market gardener, earning a living for them both -

but Stark also claims that she was an ailing invalid throughout. Her attitude towards her

mother is ambiguous and her autobiography often seems little more than an attempt to

rehabilitate the relationship, since quarrels with her mother had been a prime motive in

her desire to distance herself through travel.

This study is also concerned with Stark's writing style and a chapter is devoted to

comparing her prose style, favourably, with that of Gertrude Bell (1868-1926), T.E.

Lawrence (1885-1935), and Charles Doughty (1843-1926), with whose work she was

familiar.

In her introduction to Spinsters Abroad, Dea Birkett expresses doubt that travelling women

could be considered to be heroines of the feminist movement. They were unsympathetic

to the women's cause. Birkett ponders on what exactly "had allowed them to roam with

the freedom of men...unpalatable answers began to emerge, illfitting to those claimed as

feminist heroines. They became increasingly unattractive role models..." She concludes

that the women were both "exploited and exploitative of the prejudices of their time".

(Birkett: xiv-xv) Stark affected to despise women. She succeeded in the Middle East

Freya Stark. Traveller's Prelude: Autobiography 1892-1927. London: John Murray. 1950. Davidson, Cathy N. & Broner, E.M. (Eds.) The Lost Tradition: Mothers and Daughters in Literature. New York: Frederick Ungar. 1980.

^ Naomi Scheman. "Missing Mothers/Desiring Daughters: Framing the Sight of Women", Critical Inquiry 15. 1988-89. 62-89. Vivien Nice. Mothers & Daughters: The Distortion of a Relationship. Macmillan: Basingstoke & London. 1992.

Joy W. Hooton. Stories of Herself When Young: Autobiographies of Australian Women. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, Australia. 1990. p. 166.

15

where other women might have failed because she was treated as an "honorary male" and,

like Birkett's women, she often put women down to gain an advantage. Travellers had to

develop good relationships with a variety of people in the East in order to travel at all, yet

most would agree that she did not make an agreeable travelling companion. Despite this,

she made lasting friendships with prominent Englishmen in the East. Again this apparent

imbalance requires investigation.

Marriage though ardently longed for, was late in coming. When she married Stewart

Perowne in 1947, she was fifty-four years of age. It was an immediate failure. The

A.D.F.A. letters between Perowne and Stark to Sir Harry Luke, of which those from Stark

are transcribed in Appendix 2, suggest that Perowne had intended it to be a marriage in

name only. This raises questions which remain unanswered, about Stark's own motives.

Stark was sometimes charged with being snobbish and with reason. She defends herself by saying that she wanted to please her mother. (Coast of Incense: 8)14 She courted men of position assiduously. It seems to have been a stratagem adopted by a woman of determination but with no large income or acknowledged position. There can be no doubt that her appearance enlivened the lives of others. She wrote from Aden in 1934: "M. Besse tells me they are all rather relieved to find me an ordinary human being, as they had so many letters announcing my arrival, they feared I might come with trains of camels and be a dreadful nuisance."^^

This passage also reveals that she travelled with a full complement of introductions and

received much assistance and encouragement from men of influence who lived in the

areas she explored. Her travels and her travel writings continued unabated into advanced

old age. The British Broadcasting Company televised her rafting down the Euphrates and

trekking in the Himalayas when she was in her eighties. This confirms her enduring

popularity, but also suggests that she was still searching for something which eluded her.

This statement of her remarkable achievements raises questions that are not answered

satisfactorily in her autobiography, which fails to account for the reasons for her meteoric

rise to fame and the manner in which her opinions on Arabs became venerated. She

reveals only a self-made woman. Her hair-raising travel ventures do not tally with the

small opinion of her activities expressed by accredited male-explorers, nor the manner in

which Fussell passes her over. Her autobiography does not account satisfactorily for an

Freya Stark. The Coast of Incense: Autobiography 1933-1939. London: John Murray. 1953. Freya Stark. Letters, J-VIII. I-VI Ed. Lucy Moorehead, VII-VIII, Ed. Caroline Moorehead. Salisbury: Michael Russell, 1974-82, Letters 11: 208. They are subsequently cited as "Letters" followed by the volume in roman numerals and page number.

16

apparently very sick woman who was still able to travel to remote, wild places. Neither does it account for the readiness of the British Government to stir itself to rescue her, when others had lived or died without anybody attempting to rescue them. Even the briefest of accounts raises doubts about her real as opposed to her stated relationship with her mother. Questions of this nature become the substance of my enquiries, along with an examination of the change over time in her attitude towards the East, and a consideration of her prose style.

17

CHAPTER I FREYA STARK AND THE CREATION OF A SELF

Dame Freya Stark (1893-1993) was unusually concerned with affirming her "identity"^ and she went against the grain of custom in writing four autobiographical books which deal with the first fifty-three years of her life. Traveller's Prelude (1950), Beyond Euphrates (1951)2, The Coast of Incense (1953) and Dust in the Lion's Paw (1961)3 were well-received, although until recently women's autobiographies have rarely achieved any kind of prominence."^ However, since her books were defined as travel literature, and travel literature has always had an interested following, her choice of publisher assured her of a following.

The question of acceptable form in autobiography has provoked considerable debate. In the past, autobiography was considered barely respectable as a literary form. Joy Hooton observes that: "Not only have autobiographies been largely ignored by literary scholars, bibliographers, cultural commentators and even historians, but autobiography as a genre has not found a home in library classifications" (p. x), while Shumaker said that: "No critical speculation about what autobiography 'ought to be' in form and content will answer the question about what it actually is".^

Stark has been unusually well-documented and no less than four biographies have been written, by Alexander Maitland (1982), Caroline Moorehead (1985), Malise Ruthven (1986) and Molly Izzard (1993)6. Stark's travel books, essays and letters also include a wealth of overlapping autobiographical detail. A large selection of her letters, many

Patricia Meyer Spacks. Imagining a Self: Autobiography and Novel in Eighteenth-Century England. Cambridge, Mass. & London: Harvard University Press. 1976. p. 1. Freya Stark. Beyond Euphrates: Autobiography WIS-WSS. London: Century. 1983. First published London: John Murray. 195 L Freya Stark. Dust in the Lion's Paw: Autobiography 1939-1946. London: Century. 1985. First published London: John Murray. 1961. Vivien E Nice. Mothers & Daughters: The Distortion of a Relationship. London: Macmillan. (1992) "those who are not...male have been given a peripheral role", p. 3. Wayne Shumaker. English Autobiography: Its Emergence, Material arui Form. Berkeley: University of California Press. (California, University Publication. English Studies 8) 1954, p 3. Since then, Philippe Lejeune has created charts to classify autobiography. On Autobiography. (Theory and History of Literature, Vol. 52). Translated by Katherine Leary. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 1989. p. 7. Alexander Maitland. A Tower in a Wall. Edinburgh: Blackwood. 1982. Caroline Moorehead Freya Stark. 1985. Lives of Modern Women. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Malise Ruthven. Traveller Through Time: A Photographic Journey with Freya Stark. Harmondsworth: Viking. 1986. Molly Izzard. Freya Stark: A Biography. London: Hodder Stoughton. 1993.

18

previously unpublished, were also collected and issued in eight volumes, between 1974-1982 (Letters I-VIII) and these supply information on the years not covered by her autobiography. Appendix 2 of this thesis also includes a transcription of correspondence between Stark and friend Sir Harry Luke.

One might conclude that all that could be said had already been said, but this proves not to be so. Unanswered questions include how Stark acquired the aura of mystique which surrounded her achievements, which while highly creditable do not merit the degree of respect, nor the number of medals, titles and academic honours bestowed upon her. I found no answers in her autobiography, nor in her first three biographers. Neither is it apparent why she continued to receive awards and medals after the war. Her travels had by then not only taken place a long time ago, but they were still unremarkable in comparison with those of other women travellers like Gertrude Bell. There is no real direct statement about why she went travelling in the first place, nor why she had chosen Syria and how she had succeeded so remarkably on her subsequent travels. Stark presents herself as a self-made woman, of no personal wealth or influence, with no sympathetic friends to assist her. She reveals that she had to work for several years to pay for her Syrian venture. 1 began to feel ungenerous, when 1 should have been expressing only admiration for her achievements. A lone voice, that of Molly Izzard, expresses the same kinds of doubts, and also feels that something is missing in the account and that there must have been some influence upon her, and assistance, to which she has not admitted.

Stark rates herself on a level with men, since in the past only men's activities have been considered worthy of public record. However, the issue of her conception of herself is not so clear cut as the act of writing implies. She did not write her autobiography to challenge men, nor to prove that women are their equal because she did not think that women were the equal of men. She campaigned on behalf of the Women's Anti-Suffrage League. Her London guardian. Viva Jeyes, was Secretary of the organization. Stark disregarded women's rights because she had been taught that women were not good enough for public life. She never appeared to regret her act later. In fact, she was always fearful of feminism, even forgetting on occasion in the East that she too, was not a man. Forgetting her place led, fortunately, to the writing of her autobiography. The act indicates that she inhabits "a man's world" and that it gave her honorary privileges of the masculine sort.

Theories on women's autobiographical writing create the expectation which is not disappointed that there will be detectable limits upon what Stark writes about. Despite her adventurous career in a man's world, no rebel surfaces in her depiction of her youthful

19

self. She is untroubled by thoughts of what she might have become in a society which

was more sympathetic to women's aspirations and needs. Instead of dwelling on how

difficult things were made for a woman, she concentrates instead upon its positive effects.

It was remarkable indeed for a woman to travel in the Middle East, alone, in the late

1920s and 1930s and local people did not quite know what to make of her or how to

react. She took determined advantage of this.

Despite the wealth of data available, any biography of Freya Stark creates problems.

There are few known facts on Stark's early life apart from what she herself chose to reveal.

It is unsatisfactory that her biographers have been obliged to repeat what she released

about her early years. Three were her friends and if they ever wished to disagree with

what she had said then it is not obvious, although an occasional wry tone is detected.

Alexander Maitland stayed as her guest in Asolo while they planned a joint publishing

v e n t u r e . 7 His biography is a record of their conversations while they selected

photographs. He is evidently familiar with her life story, but he fails to challenge even

the most obvious of anomalies.® Stark's voice comes through strongly - and as she

increasingly did with advancing years, she allows errors of perception of her achievements

to flourish. The Australian journalist and writer Alan Moorehead and his wife Lucy were

close friends of Stark. Lucy Moorehead had edited Stark's Letters until her death in 1979,

when Caroline Moorehead completed the work. Perhaps neither woman saw Stark's

letters in their unedited form (Stark performed this herself with the aid of a typist) and

only a few friendly asides suggest that Stark may sometimes have been in error. Malise

Ruthven was her godson, concerned with maintaining her reputation and her public

profile. Only Molly Izzard is entirely unrelated to Stark. She was a reporter who had

known Stark by repute in wartime, and had been curious and critical of her apparently

unwarranted reputation. She also knew many of the people connected with Stark at the

time, but even this made little difference to the sum total of information on Stark's early

life. Further investigation by Izzard reveals that war records no longer exist, and that the

Rivers of Time Photographs Dame Freya Stark. Introduction Alexander Maitland. Edinburgh: William Blackwood. 1982. She said that she belonged to the Church of England (Maitland: 50), and that she was baptized at the age of about nineteen (Maitland: 27) when her autobiography said that she was baptized a Presbyterian in 1925, at the age of thirty-two, at Bordighera. (Traveller's Prelude: 334). She also claimed her mother for the Church of England (Maitland: 27) although her mother had converted to Roman Catholicism in 1916. (Traveller's Prelude: 157) Ages can be forgotten, but facts of diis nature are not. A simple explanation is that most expatriate community churches were either Church of England or Roman Catholic, so that all Protestants became hononary members of the Church of England. The upper middle class and the aristocracy, with whom Stark allied, were, with a few historical exceptions, members of the Established Church, as was her husband, Stewart Perowne, himself the son of a Bishop. Perhaps this had something to do with her claim.

20

Public Record Office files contain little of interest about her. (Izzard: 39) Although the

majority of books written on the war-time Middle East mention Stark in a variety of

tones, nothing of real substance is said by anybody. I became steadily more curious and

also felt that a more balanced view of her life might be appropriate: her first three

biographies were uncritical and Izzard's erred too much in the other direction.

In common with every literary text, Stark's writing is amenable to interpretation and

modem autobiographical theory suggests some possible lines of reading and interpretation.

As Barrett John Mandel observes: "in order to speak meaningfully about autobiography,

the critic must understand the aesthetic range possible in the genre"^. Although he also

says that: "There can certainly be little meaning in a suggestion that a literary work is

valuable or significant for that which it does not contain" (Mandel: 217), this factor is

open to debate. I have already noted that women's autobiography is conventionally more

discrete. Sidonie Smith confirms that although the sexual proprieties are observed,

stylistic ways of evading them are more commonly detected in the writing of women. She

and other feminist writers point out that language itself is shaped by males and

dominating male structures, so that women are "forced into silence, euphemism or

circumlocution". Pierre Macherey and I share an interest in such gaps, which he

describes "as symptoms of a repressed history which the text's ideology endeavours to

conceal and which the critic should be concerned to expose".^^ I found many such gaps

in Stark's autobiography and the interpretation of their "repressed history" provides some

answers about Stark's relationship with her family. I was able to account for her fondness

for travel by unravelling the significance of events in her life which she does not seem to

recognize or even chooses to deny because she is conventionally anxious to present the

correct face to the world.

Autobiographic theory maintains that the author "creates sel f , in the manner of a

novelist who establishes character by using certain techniques; and an appropriate

narrative voice which is expected to be "adequate". (Mandel: 223-4) Autobiographies

throughout history have contained many untruths but absolute truth no longer has any

meaning. (Mandel: 219) Many theorists believe that reliability is impossible because

detachment is difficult. (Mandel: 223) Benstock confirms this: "autobiography reveals

Barrett John Mandel. "The Autobiographer's Art". Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. 27. 1968. 215-226, 215. Sidonie Smith. A Poetics of Women's Autobiography: Marginality and the Fictions of Self-Representation. Bloomington Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. 1987. p 56. K.M. Newton. Interpreting the Text: A Critical Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Literary Interpretation. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf. 1990. p. 140.

21

the impossibility of its own dreams: what begins on the presumption of self-knowledge ends in the creation of a fiction that covers over the premises of its construction."^^ A persona, or a "private conception a man has of himself, (Mandel: 223) may be created to narrate the account.

Freya Stark created just such a self, and 1 argue over the next few chapters that a fiction was created by her to conceal or at least improve upon her portrait of self. "She followed her own publicity carefully, and was protective of her record", confirms Izzard. (Izzard: 32) If Stark presents an "illusory self, and I have already suggested that this may be so, then she could only have achieved it with the collusion of others, and in general this seems to be true. Part of it was the shaping of her autobiography, and indirectly of her biographies. I endeavour to correct the balance.

Stark is not alone in creating a "preferred self. French writer and philosopher, Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986), whilst admitting to the suppression of facts and vast omissions, claimed that she had: "at no point set down deliberate falsehoods" in her autobiography. ^ TTiose who knew her thought that she had. ^ Stark is no different.

It is widely agreed in feminist theory that women are oppressed by a male-dominated society and in a devastating analysis of women's lives, English psychoanalyst Juliet Mitchell observes that oppression within the family: "produces a tendency to small-mindedness, petty jealousy, irrational emotionality and random violence, dependency, competitive selfishness and possessiveness, passivity, a lack of vision and conservatism."^^ Stark's behaviour and attitudes are on occasion characterized in the above terms. The nature of the oppression, which Stark attributes solely to her brother-in law, Mario di Roascio, is examined and found inadequate as an explanation of her subsequent history.

Freya Stark's parents were first cousins and the family money had been made brewing cider in Devonshire, in South West England. The beginning of her autobiography signals the expectation which is not disappointed that Stark is aggrandizing herself for snobbish reasons. The effects of her snobbery were to dominate her life, and her activities. Without it she might never have turned to a life of adventure. Her maternal forebears

Shari Benstock. "Authorizing the Autobiographical", in Shari Benstock. Ed. The Private Self: Theory and Practice of Women's Autobiographical Writings. Chapel Hill & London: The University of North Carolina Press. 1988. 10-33, p. 11. Simone de Beauvoir. The Prime of Life. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 1965. First published France. 1960. p.9. Deirdre Bair. Simone de Beauvoir: A Biography. London: Jonathan Cape. 1990. (Especially over the relationship with American writer. Nelson Algren. p. 334ff.) Juliet Mitchell. Woman's Estate. New York: Pantheon Books. 1971. p. 162.

22

were not as illustrious as Stark's reference to distant titles implies. Her grandmother was a

German-bom governess, teaching both before marriage and in her widowhood. Her

efforts to live an aristocratic lifestyle resulted in a poverty-stricken old age. Her life often

seems to parallel diat of Stark, who admired her style whilst ignoring her self-absorption.

Similarly, although Stark stresses her own mother's intimacy with the Roman aristocracy,

it was not quite as Stark implies: they were only her employers. She worked for them as a

governess in Italy until her marriage. Neither were her parents artists in the sense of

earning their living by art or pursuing art on a regular basis. When Flora Stark married

Robert Stark, they wandered around Europe, living on a small private income. Freya and

Vera did not arrive until after thirteen and fourteen years of marriage: Flora evidently did

not define life in terms of her children, who were in the nature of a coda to married life.

Stark found this very unsatisfactory. In Stark's later life, her father was an unsuccessful

orchardist in Canada and her mother, always an exceptional woman, ran two factories in

succession in Italy. They were not leisured aristocrats, too rich to bother about proper

application to their art, as Stark implies to account for their lack of commercial success in

art: both worked hard to earn a living, one on the land and the other in small industry,

and Stark had to work for her living too, originally as a nurse and then as a market

gardener. Money was limited. In fact, the real story of her mother's life is more startling

than the aristocratic, piano-playing beauty whom Stark presents.

Stark's portrait of her mother is astonishing, and easily as problematical as theories of

women's lives might lead us to expect. Vivien Nice observes that men have traditionally

prescribed how women should relate to their mothers and also how the ideal mother

should behave. (Nice: 6) Mothers are blamed for every ill that befalls their children,

regardless of whether the outcome is under their control or not. (Nice: 6-7) Nice draws

attention to the existence of ambivalence in the mother-daughter relationship and notes

tha t problems arise only "when ambivalence is not considered normal in a close

relationship and feelings have to be denied." (Nice: 11) Mothers are doomed to failure,

throughout the ages. (Nice: 29) In contrast. Stark appears to be enchanted by her

mother. Flora, whom she describes as "a sort of Diana, a vision of radiance". (Traveller's Prelude: 19) There is some poetic license in this description, since by the time Stark had

any clear memories of her, her mother was middle-aged. An aura of sexual scandal

surrounded Flora Stark, to which Stark delicately alludes, and fails to dispel. Mrs Stark

left her husband, taking her two children, then aged eight and nine, to Piedmont in Italy,

where a younger friend, Mario di Roascio, was building up a factory. She involved herself

and her small capital in the man and his coir matting factory for the next sixteen years.

Stark maintains that they were not lovers, whilst also declaring that her mother was

23

obsessed by him - and he by her. She thought that her "mother must have loved Mario, but without ever realizing it", and was too insensitive to notice any scandal, despite the fact that: "all our lives were heaping themselves in little ruins about her". (Traveller's

Prelude: 73)

Stark's confusion about her mother's character and feelings is evident. Embedded in this text are a variety of conflicting emotions: anger, jealousy of di Roascio, censoriousness, revenge, self-centredness and the voice of Stark as a betrayed child. They cut firmly across Stark's presentation of her mother as "filled with affection" for her. It seems that Mrs Stark was far too self-absorbed to consider other people, including her children: she had too many worries of her own. At no point did Stark consider the possibility that provincial Dronero society might be lacking, or that Mrs Stark displayed admirable insouciance in ignoring it and in working for her own and her daughters' living. Stark relates with shame that family friends taught the two unkempt children how to wash and dress neatly and how to behave, once the children's nurses were dispensed with. Mrs Stark escaped whenever she could to nurse sick people: "This habit of flinging her family away at the call of the stranger caused nearly all the sorrows of our later girlhood", observed Stark. (Traveller's Prelude: 57) Herbert Young, her father's friend, who lived next door in Asolo, (where they had spent part of their earlier years), sometimes cared for the abandoned children. (Traveller's Prelude: 57) My conclusion is that Flora Stark was unmatemal and frankly bored by her children. Failing to recognize this. Stark determinedly depicts an idyllic mother-daughter relationship and I gradually learned to distrust Stark's conclusions. Finally, it seems that Herbert Young played a far greater part in their childhood than Stark ever implies. In practical terms he was a substitute father. Stark does acknowledge that Young had "had a lasting effect" upon her life, (Maitland: 28) and "the fact that Herbert was always about the place and taking photographs may have made a deeper impression than one realized". (Maitland: 34) I shall take up this point later.

"Was Mario Flora's lover?" queried Malise Ruthven, concluding tactfully: "Freya thought not, at least in the technical sense." (Ruthven: 23) However improbable her stance may

24

seem today, and in view of the fact that they seem to have been devoted to each other, ^

her mother's real situation scarcely matters. Stark's perception was that they were

ostracized by local society in Dronero, and that the two sisters had no young friends as a

result of her mother's relationship. They formed a claustrophobic family group.

Stark's autobiography reveals a conflict between her view of her mother as a sexually

desirable goddess and her insistence upon her mother's purity. Stark's failure to come to

terms with sexuality was to cause her life-long problems, so that her own sexuality was

submerged in doubt, and indeed remains so. She also displays an understandable

reluctance to acknowledge her bad relationship with her mother: "All happy families are

alike but an unhappy family is unhappy after its own fashion", observed Leo Tolstoy.^

Stark took advantage of writing her autobiography to rewrite an unsatisfactory

relationship with her mother. It is precisely because her relationship was unendurable, as

Stark reveals in her autobiography, that she departs in a hurry, allegedly still weak from

illness, on her first trip to Syria in 1929.

Izzard confirms her bad relationship with her mother by commenting that people had

received the impression in 1935 and 1936 that Stark "was frequently at odds with her

mother, who was the larger personality." (Izzard: 97-98) "'Flora...appears to have been

rehabilitated by death in her daughter's eyes...'", Sir Julian Huxley's widow, Juliette, is

reputed to have said. (Izzard: 31) With this I concur.

Her parent's friend and some-time father substitute, Herbert Young, may have been in

part responsible for the observable imbalance in Stark's sexual development. He never

married and was: "a genial dilettante and keen photographer". (Ruthven: 15) "Herbert

Young was greatly attached to the two little girls", confirms Moorehead. (Moorehead: 21)

His credentials are impressive and it seems unfair to criticize them and yet Stark depicts a

Peter Pan figure, who:

used to join the party at the bath, which was a round tin affair in front of a wood fire. It made him happy to have his house with children in it, though he kept an old bachelor aloofness which endeared him, and made us feel to him like an equal. With an arm round each of us he read aloud for hours...Vera, bored by chivalry, made her own lonely little games. She wandered away uncomplaining and uncommunicative, while I monopolized Herbert in dragon hunts. 1 had a reputation for naughtiness at that time, which seemed to make me unjustly popular, for all my parents' visitors were ready to come and play at my games. Yet I was possessive, envious, and full of rages. (Traveller's Prelude: 58)

It is highly unlikely that her publisher would have encouraged any other opinion. John Murray was strongly moral and paternalistic, as Stark's letters to him reveal. Leo Tolstoy. Anna Karenina. Tr. Rosemary Edwards. Harmondswordi: Penguin. 1954, 1978. p. 13.

25

The relationship sounds idyUic, but this story, in common with her other apparently wonderful relationships in childhood, contains unwitting revelations. Stark's stance that Young "kept a bachelor aloofness" is not substantiated either by his behaviour or by her statement that he was regarded as their equal. Further the adult Herbert's direction of and participation in her childish games did not have a happy outcome for her because she tells us that the aftermath was that they left her "full of rages"- surely an over-response to simple children's games? She depicts a relationship which leaves her a highly disturbed child. The story bears the hallmarks of incidents which are considered to lead to later difficulty in sexual relationships. TTiis as we know was so in the adult Stark. The dragons re-surface in later life, as 1 observe in Appendix 1, when 1 investigate Stark's private life more fully.

Herbert photographed the little girls throughout their childhood. "Sometimes they are draped artistically in Greek tunics or Japanese kimonos, at other times they are posed naked among the flowers, shrimpy little creatures, with great mops of thick curly hair." (Izzard: 251) The scene did not promote the growth of Freya into a mature young woman, (if not apparently affecting Vera, who rarely participated).

Young's interests were akin to those of the Reverend Charles Dodgson (1832-1898), the real name of Lewis Carroll. Hie two men shared a fascination in playing with children, telling them fairy stories, photographing them in fancy clothes, or unclothed. It seems a fairly innocent past-time and yet Anne Clark tells us that to photograph a girl with bare legs or in boys' clothing at the turn of the century was considered morally doubtful and nudity was well beyond decency.^® Dodgson too, in common with Young, was "a confirmed bachelor". (Clark: 207) The activities may appear as innocuous to us as they did to Stark's mother, but their effect upon the more sensitive Stark does seem to have been harmful, both in the short and in the long run.

Herbert Young, who would no doubt have been astonished to see his activities regarded in this light, shared his house at Asolo with the adult Stark and her mother from 1925 until his death during the war, when the house became Stark's property. Stark occasionally went on mountain holidays with him, into his old age. He had been a substitute husband to Flora, a relationship about which Stark makes surprisingly little issue, in comparison with the di Roascio affair, and he was a father of sorts to her. As noted earlier, he had cared for the children in their early years when Mrs Stark was indulging in sick nursing. "Concern for the Stark children on the part of friends was something that accompanied

18. Clark, Anne. Lewis Carroll: A Biography. New York. Schoken Books. 1979. p. 205.

26

the household from its earliest days", Izzard confirms. (Izzard: 249) Flora Stark's

indifference led to such obscure relationships between her children and others.

In his slender book, Alexander Maitland is the only one who attempts a fairly tenacious

probing on the issue of Herbert Young and he is rebuffed. He skirts the issue of Lewis

Carroll (Maitland: 16-17) and poses the question: "Did you enjoy dressing up like that?"

"Yes...yes, I think so." (Maitland: 21) It is as if she were aware that Maitland is being too

probing, since she herself had brought up the issue of the naked frolics in a matter-of-fact

manner. (Maitland: 21) She apparently changes the subject and speaks of the loss of her

long hair, which had been cut after the loom accident. I conclude that she views herself

as suffering more at the hands of di Roascio than as the result of any amount of nude

photography. Perhaps she should not have done: Maitland's direction of thought provides

almost the only attempt to probe her preference for the company of elderly men and the

source of her subsequent apparent distaste for sexual relationships.

As well as adoring her mother, Stark apparently revered her father, Robert Stark. She

uses a common technique to establish his strongly artistic character:

Developing a narrative by means of anecdotes about others is a tool used by most autobiographers to protect themselves from their material, for by concentrating on others' lives, they can hide the painful or unpleasant aspects of their lives or reveal them indirectly. ^

but in her choice of anecdote to relate it, something of her own vision of the relationship

slips through, so that her stated view of her father's character is badly undercut. Robert

Stark told a tale which he surely must have known would mortify his plain daughter^*^.

As he strolled in London with an artist friend, the latter knocked off a passerby's hat,

explaining: "It was his face that deserved it. One can't have a face like that." (Traveller's Prelude: 26) Despite the inclusion of this curious anecdote, presumably meant to illustrate

her father and his friend's delicate artistic sensitivities. Stark reveals instead a boorish

friend, and a father who was as insensitive as her mother, appearing not to appreciate the

blow so callously inflicted upon his daughter. She now knew that she did not have her

father's approval. Following his example, she developed an acute awareness of beauty in

women, and mourned her own plainness, exacerbated by a childhood accident,

throughout her life.

Estelle C. Jelinek. The Tradition of Women's Autobiographies. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms International. 1987. Degree Date 1977. p. 192.

20. See picture, frontispiece. Stark was a short, plain and usually overweight woman, with a strongly moulded nose and mouth and small eyes, who was hypersensitive about the fact that her mother, her younger sister and her London guardian Mrs Jeyes, were slender, beautiful women.

27

Stark is not the only female to be taught the significance of female beauty, its importance

in a woman's career, and to derive a lifelong sense of inferiority as a result - whether

merited or not. Deirdre Bair comments that Simone de Beauvoir's father inflicted the

same kind of blow upon her:

When Simone was twelve, George told her, one would hope jokingly, that she was ugly. The word cut her in ways that caused emotional pain more than sixty years later. In her memoirs and in many interviews in which she discussed her parents and her childhood, Beauvoir included the blunt statement that her father pronounced her "laide". The flat, emotionless tone with which she repeated this remark surely covered a deep and continuing pain. (Bair: 61)

Most people would agree that de Beauvoir was an exceptionally attractive, even a

beautiful woman, yet, like Stark, she experienced an apparently life-long set-back because

she had not received her father's approval. She too failed to develop a satisfactory

relationship with men, including Jean-Paul Sartre. Unloving or indifferent parents are

not uncommon among women autobiographers, and M. L. Skinner (1876-1955) had a

similar tale to tell.^^

The father-daughter relationship is problematic. Robert Stark made Vera and Stark ride

and hunt, which frightened her, took them on uncomfortable camping trips, offering

them a spartan diet which made her sick and fed her fears by demanding feats of

endurance in the gathering dusk. He also made the girls wear practical boys' clothes for

these exploits, so that embarrassing comments were made about their exact status as boys

or girls. Their mother, meanwhile, fought unsuccessfully for money for party dresses for

them. The story beneath the surface, or the sub-text, runs counter to Stark's loving

declarations and reveals a frightened child who was confused about her sexuality and

bewildered by conflicting parental demands, especially over active pursuits of the kind

which were normally reserved for boys and the vexed matter of appropriate clothing.

Stark did not like her mother's business partner, Mario di Roascio (bom c l879 ) with

whom they lived in Dronero, Piedmont. She refers to him as a count, but Izzard

maintains that as a younger son, he had not inherited the family title. (Izzard: 256-257)

This attitude confirms Stark's reverence for "good family" and her characteristic snobbery

is revealed. Although she always insisted that it was di Roascio's personal characteristics:

his bullying, his constant egotistical talk and his Fascist beliefs and actions which she

disliked, there are ample grounds for thinking otherwise. She was careful not to blame

him directly but he was at least partially responsible for a shocking accident which

21. M. L. Skinner, The Fifth Sparrow. An autobiography with a foreward by M. Durack. Sydney: Sydney University Press. 1972. She reveals numerous parallels with Stark's life, including a supremely indifferent mother.

28

occurred to her in January 1906, when she was thirteen. Whilst showing her his new looms, her hair became caught in the machinery. A small part of her scalp was torn away and her eyelid had to be re-sewn in position. Her long hair was cut off. "The scars...have always remained, and were a constant trouble, making me self-conscious, and also no doubt spoiling such looks as 1 might have had." {Traveller's Prelude: 86) Her words are superficially objective but: "Here she deceived herself. Freya was a plain child, and grew into a plain young woman, while her scars were more apparent to herself than to anyone else", says Izzard, tartly but not untruthfully. (Izzard: 303)

It is understandable that Stark allows herself the illusion of lost beauty, but she also thought that positive gains had been made as a result of the accident: her mother now loved her more than she loved her sister Vera. D.H. Lawrence depicted Paul Morel in Sons and Lovers as similarly blessed by his mother after childhood illness .22 It is not unexpected that more dream than reality is apparent in Stark's description of the new relationship:

She became someone not only to be admired but to be protected. I spent half my time thinking out things to please her, and waited for her when she came home in the evening, helping her to wash and change. She was so used to these adorations that she took it all very easily - a thing always dangerous for any human being to do. (Traveller's Prelude: 86-87)

What she actually depicts is her mother's indifference. Her evidence for the change in her mother's attitude is her own slavish devotion. Stark attributes her own feelings to others frequently, with predictably disastrous results. She waits for no reciprocal evidence of fondness. Time and again throughout life, in obvious disregard of observable reality, and sometimes of the well-intentioned efforts of those around her to disillusion her, she imagines close relationships between herself and others which do not in reality exist. It indicates a solitary nature, and also that she was not accustomed to receiving affection in the home and did not recognize its lack in others' relationships with her.

Insincerity occurs as a result of Stark's efforts to present the relationship with her mother in the best possible light. A further anecdote suggests that she really believes that despite her illness, her mother still favours Vera. Both girls hated housework but Vera was let off by her mother and Stark says that: "at the age of thirteen I was given the housekeeping to do, on ten pounds a month, including wages and all." (Traveller's Prelude: 90) Stark seems to be making this up. Whatever her perception of her mother's feelings, relative to her sister and herself, the vision of herself as household drudge cannot be substantiated. Stark said that she was still "delicate" (always a favourite description of herself) after her

D.H.Lawrence. Sons and Lovers. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 1948. p. 84-5.

29

accident and diat she spent the summer of her fourteenth year resting on Dartmoor: "My

father moved my bed into the big window of our room, to let me watch the sunrise or the

moonUght." (Traveller's Prelude: 94) The loom accident had occurred only days before

her thirteenth birthday, and she was in hospital until late spring. She then went to

Dartmoor.

What we witness are no less dian three of Stark's favourite themes, none of which she was

unwilling to abandon even when they do not fit together. One was that Stark was a

household drudge, the second was that she was delicate, and the third was that she was

the favoured one. Any of her observations were possibly true, of a strictly limited period

of time, but she does not let go subsequently, and the emotional intensity which she

invests in them merits further investigation. The supposed "delicacy" surfaces again and

again and the next chapter is devoted to the investigation of what was an entirely false

perception. Izzard concurs: "the status of invalid was firmly established in her own mind,

and enforced with plaintive fortitude on those surrounding her." (Izzard: 97) Cooking

was also the occasion of much bad feeling. She refused to cater for herself or anybody else

on her expeditions, often going hungry as a result, or putting up with the indigestible

efforts of her guides. A letter to her mother reveals that even in her middle years, her

mother still cooked for her. Hie results form the subject of a surprisingly ungrateful letter

which is quoted in Chapter 2. If she were not delicate, then the probability is that she

was not the domestic martyr, nor the favoured daughter either. In fact, it is confirmed by

a number of anecdotes that Vera had the reputation for being the "good" daughter.

(Traveller s Prelude: 60)

Stark received the impression when she was sixteen that di Roascio wanted to marry her

and that her mother was in favour of it. She writes delightfully of love:

At sixteen one is awakening very delicately to love - a thing ethereal and elusive as a rainbow. I lived in a sort of languor: the lengthening days, the boughs of blossom against the sky, the long shadows in the cool grass, filled me with happiness that got itself mixed with sadness, so that I hardly knew which was which...I gradually tried to introduce the concrete presence of Mario. I never succeeded very well, for I really did not like him; but he was the only man in all our field of vision, and I was awakening like a plant or flower, taking whatever sun there was...I tried to become as negative as he wished: it was a whole year of fluttering feelings. (Traveller's Prelude: 103)

It is painfully evident that it is Stark who fancies herself in love. "He was the only man in

our field of vision", she said transparently and her confusion is evident: "I really did not

like him". She presents her own interest in marriage to di Roascio, not the reverse. Stark

retrospectively dislikes anybody who offends her, even when, as here, di Roascio had

apparently aroused "a whole year of fluttering feelings". Stark approached her mother,

30

whom she believed to be encouraging the match, but her mother denied all knowledge. This did not shake Stark's confidence, although it should have done, since the "courtship" was tepid, by any standards:

When I went to shut the front door after him at night he would keep me longer and longer. I knew nothing of what all this meant: no one now would believe how innocent we were: but as the months went by it began to dawn on me that I was expected to marry him. I thought it my mother's wish, and tried hard to think it mine also. {Traveller's Prelude: 103)

What she depicts are the results of a life of boredom and isolation in Dronero, Piedmont, where the girls spent their later childhood years. Stark was never to discover what a real courtship consisted of, despite a late marriage. Some time later, when they were out on a walk. Stark took di Roascio's question: "Would you like us always to be like this -together?" (Traveller's Prelude: 104) as a proposal of marriage and perhaps fortunately replied in the negative. She said that only later did she realize that she had rejected a marriage proposal. Even Malise Ruthven, not one to risk offending his godmother's sensibilities, called it a "somewhat oblique proposal". (Ruthven: 25) It is of course, always possible that Mario had addressed his remark to Vera, who formed part of the trio on the fateful walk and whom he did subsequently marry. Stark never developed a more mature attitude towards this incident - nor, it seems, a sense of humour. The case is slowly evolving that capacity for self-deception ran deep in Stark. It was Stark who in reality had always loved di Roascio "without ever realizing it", rather than her mother. A picture of someone with an unappeased hunger to receive more than she did from personal relationships emerges, and also of one with a jealous distaste for any group which did not include her. "Her emotional history is one of persistent misinterpreted ardour and of tacit evasion by men", confirms Izzard, a shade unkindly. (Izzard: 303)

Stark had to find something to do. Neither office work for the family factory nor housekeeping were inviting. She had retained her family connections with England and she decided to go to London and matriculate, despite her rather desultory private education. She entered Bedford College, University of London, in 1912 at the age of nineteen. Stark's decision is surprising, since any education for women was widely considered to be superfluous, but she is careful to refute any suggestion that she might be a bluestocking. In fact, she seems to have gone to university for a variety of reasons - none of them educational. She wanted to get away from claustrophobic family relationships, to improve her social life and to meet a man worth marrying. She was disappointed: "my formal, elaborate Italian manners made me unpopular...all my longing, rather pathetically humble, was to be exactly like everyone else and to be liked." (Traveller s Prelude: 120) She felt that her appearance and her home-made clothes were against her and blamed her mother but probably she had only herself to blame since she says that: "After about six

31

months I lived myself down", (Traveller's Prelude: 120) suggesting that she had found it

difficult to fit in. Stark was always ready to blame others for what were, in effect, her own

personality defects.

Her exact contemporary, the writer Vera Brittain ( 1 8 9 3 - 1 9 7 0 ) , a l s o felt diat she didn't

fit in at University, and complained about unflattering clothing and chaperonage, but

with one important difference. Where Stark must find someone to blame when things go

wrong for her, whether it is her mother's taste in clothing or the insensitivity of Viva

Jeyes, (her mother's friend and her London guardian), Brittain saw clearly that custom is

imposed upon parents, as well as upon their children. Fashions for women were simply

unattractive. Brittain also recorded close chaperonage with a sigh, but never attributed it

to want of tact in her mother, and made vain efforts to discourage her, as Stark did.

Stark felt that the choice of guardian for her was equally inappropriate, and that she

would have been happier in an artistic household. This is doubtful. At no stage did she

ever associate with the artistic, Bohemian friends of her parents' youth. She always

enjoyed demonstrating that she knew how to behave properly. However, she felt that

Viva Jeyes ("darling Viva"^^) did not much like her. She complains that Mrs Jeyes, after

inviting Stark to a Royal Academy Exhibition had then silently passed her over in favour

of a pretty, well-dressed neighbour, a Miss Raiguel. "I was disappointed, 1 remember

watching them drive away with no protest in my heart, but sadly and impersonally, as one

watches the Unattainable." (Traveller's Prelude: 126) This is Stark's preferred picture of

herself. An understandable envy, jealousy, even rage at the lovely Miss Raiguel are

concealed in those words. Had she had no protest in her heart, then she would not have

recounted the insignificant event nearly forty years later. However, 1 think that the

anecdote is untrue. She complains often of Mrs Jeyes' "puritan conscience" and the way

in which she insists upon Stark being punctilious too: "With Viva, the smallest pleasure

had to carry some ethical burden that was only too apt to snuff it out altogether".

(Traveller's Prelude: 124)

University did not meet her expectations. She had had no formal schooling and found

the work difficult and she did not attract friends of her own age. She had to settle for

elderly friends of the family and she records adoringly that: "The centre and gain of all my

life at college was W.P. Ker". (Traveller s Prelude: 121) Professor William Paton Ker

(1855-1923) was one of the many avuncular males whom she regarded as father

Vera Brittain. Testament of Youth: An Autobiographical Study of the Years 1900-1925. Preface Rt. Hon. Shirley Williams. London: Gollancz. 1978. First published 1933. Maidand: 42.

32

substitutes and potential husbands. Stark's choice of the elderly might appear to indicate

that she was sexually unawakened but her description of her feelings for di Roascio

suggests that this was not so. However, her family was physically cold: "1 remember what

a surprise it was to see Harry Qeyes] put his arm round her [Viva Jeyes] one evening and

seat her on his knee; we had never seen a caress between grown-up people before"

(Traveller's Prelude: 99), and she therefore lacks an essential experience.

Stark's aimlessness and discontent with the world which seemed to offer her nothing but

disappointment becomes all the more obvious when she is compared with Vera Brittain.

Brittain, who had the advantage of a boarding school experience, and also had won a

scholarship, performed much better, but she too was disadvantaged by a social system

which favoured men. She had lost a fiance in the War, but typically saw that many of her

problems were created by the social system: "Until I spent those four days at Somerville^^

in that freezing March, I had unthinkingly assumed that women's colleges were much the

same as men's." (Brittain: 75). Stark's egotism and inexperience invariably led her to

conclude that things were designed purely in order to annoy her.

W h e n they were of marriageable age, the rivalry between Stark and her pretty, younger

sister Vera became a major issue, yet Stark predictably offers the characteristic, idealized

picture of a member of her family. Vera Stark:

was undemonstrative, quiet, sturdy and uncomplaining, with never a scrap of jealousy nor envy, and so loyal...! had many loves; but she cared more for me than she cared for anyone in her life except her children; and died at twenty-six, though I think of her as a part of me still. (Traveller's Prelude: 41)

Her words are undercut by her envy. Vera "was such a pretty child that an old Jewish

couple^^ asked to buy her." (Traveller's Prelude: 40) We have already seen that Stark felt

disadvantaged within the home, since Vera "acquired a reputation for being non-domestic

which I often envied her". (Traveller's Prelude: 102) The final betrayal occurred when

Vera became engaged to di Roascio whilst Stark was away studying in London. Stark had

all the while fancied that he had proposed marriage to her. It must have been an

unbearable blow to Stark although there is no hint in her honeyed words:

W h e n she wrote to me in England to announce her engagement, 1 took a little gold ring which Mario had once given me and slipped it inside the envelope, and put it away with a contented feeling of finality. Everything was settled happily for all, and I heard little more until we met again. (Traveller's Prelude: 133)

A women's college at Oxford University. 26. Perhaps Stark's uncompromising anti-Semitism had its roots in this simple preference for her pretty

litde sister.

33

There had been no previous mention of Stark wearing a ring and yet she manages to make the gift appear like a broken promise of marriage. She hints at feelings which she dares not express even to herself, about family betrayal in a complex emotional entanglement and we note not so much di Roascio's betrayal of her as the depths of her confusion. It resulted in a massive depression: "Nineteen-fourteen came and I was twenty-one; and I woke that morning with a melancholy of age greater than I have ever felt since." (Traveller's Prelude: 126-7)

Stark left Bedford College in 1914, with no intention of returning. Her studies had been a failure, even after a change from English literature to history. She started nursing training in Bologna but abandoned it soon, upon her engagement to Guido Ruata, a thirty-eight year old bacteriologist. She was twenty-two. The engagement seems to have been a mistake right from the start. She had become friendly with him upon her arrival, compromising herself badly by entertaining him in her room at night. Di Roascio had intervened and asked him to declare his intentions. Although having none, the engagement was announced shortly after. Stark must have been thoroughly mortified by the shot-gun proposal. Di Roascio did not like Ruata, and neither did her mother. A lengthy anorexia-type illness intervened, diagnosed six or more months later as mild typhoid, and the marriage was postponed. It was then cancelled by the unenthusiastic groom, who quickly married a former lover. Stark had neither husband, job, nor, she believed, health, and her relationship with her mother had deteriorated badly over the marriage fiasco. Stark blamed first di Roascio for interfering in her relationship with Ruata and then her mother for its conclusion in which the law was invoked for the return of property.

Stark returned to England and undertook the six week's training to be a voluntary nursing aid. (V.A.D) She accepted the poor conditions of work indifferently. Her letters are filled instead with her concern to find a suitable subject for her proposed writing career, and with the men whom she had met. She mentions doing research in the British Museum for an unnamed woman for a small payment. (Letters I: 20,26 November, 1916, 16-17) Brittain, in contrast, was scathing about the unhygienic and uncomfortable conditions under which she worked. Her career was purposeful and she worked for the whole of the First World War, often in overseas postings. She then returned to her university studies.

Stark engineered a post in Italy with the historian George M. Trevelyan's prestigious Ambulance Brigade. The war was almost over, and shortly after she was again without direction. She was twenty-four. She persuaded her father to come over from Canada and

34

buy her two and a half-acres of land in 1918. He bought L'Arma, at Ventimiglia, near the French border. She then pressured her mother into living with her, arguing that her mother's presence was adverse to the relationship between di Roascio and Vera and not somehow quite respectable. Stark did possess a moralistic streak, but more probably she seized the excuse to reclaim possession of her mother. She must have hoped that her mother would involve herself and her money in the market garden, just as she had involved herself in di Roascio's factory for so many years, but it did not work out like that. There were frequent quarrels. Stark claimed that she worked long hours to make a miserable living, using peasant labour and that the major problem was lack of money. Mrs Stark's capital was still tied up in the Dronero factory and Stark wanted it back to use herself. Mrs Stark was not at all anxious to go to court, but did eventually do so. Although the action was successful, little money was ever returned. Legal action damaged her relationship with her daughter Vera and her four grandchildren, as well as with di Roascio and his family. Perhaps that was Stark's intention. Ruthven observed acutely that: "it was over her mother's soul, as much as her father's money, that she entered the long drawn-out and bitter engagement that was to scar her, physically and emotionally, for life." (Ruthven: 21) All of Stark's rivalries with her sister and di Roascio can be brought back to the conclusion that Stark wanted possession of her mother's soul and also of her money.

1 have already commented on Stark's lack of early formal schooling in Piedmont. She said that she and Vera had no friends. Not until 1923, when she was thirty, did she make her greatest friend, a wealthy unmarried woman, called Venetia Buddicom (d.l969) who was younger than herself and who lived in style in Flintshire. They had met at Bordighera, on the Italian Riviera, where Buddicom's parents had a house and a yacht. She was always impressed by Buddicom's looks, style and wealth, but she was only one of many useful acquaintances that Stark made. English society gathered in the area, and Stark met many influential people, often through her mother. Her mother seems to have taught her the value of the letter of introduction.

Buddicom accompanied Stark on two short journeys, one in the Spanish Pyrenees in 1923, and the other in Syria, in 1928. Stark planned a life of travel together, but Buddicom seemed less enthusiastic. She then disappears almost entirely from the narrative. Stark commented in The Coast of Incense (1953) that she had learned not to trust women. When Stark's letters were published in the nineteen seventies and eighties, it emerged that Buddicom had betrayed Stark in 1936 by paying attention to a close

35

friend of Stark, Anton Besse^^. They had quarrelled irrevocably, and Stark had dropped

Buddicom. Stark was never again intimate with either and her bitterness suggests that it

was Buddicom who had done the rejecting.

Women's friendship has not, until recently, been the subject of sustained scrutiny and

then often only in a sexual context. Deborah Kaplan observes that in Jane Austen's time:

"female friendships were often intense, especially those among unmarried w o m e n " .

Stark was aware of lesbianism, but evinced no great interest in it. She records

nonchalantly that their plain German governess's appearance: "did not prevent a

perverted romantic heart and a passion for my mother which everyone found trying".

(Traveller's Prelude: 40) Izzard thinks that Stark's interest in elderly men was a

"smokescreen to disguise other inclinations, hidden even from herself, (Izzard: 303) but a

weakness in her argument is that lesbian tendencies cannot be asserted without positive

evidence. Janet Todd observes that although women support and sustain each other,

fiction reveals that the relationship also possesses a threatening aspect. If a bad mother

repudiates her daughter, whilst doting on her male children, then daughters will look to

other women as substitute mothers. TTie substitute mother is then seen as incorporating

the mother's faults, so that they seek revenge in the new relationship, in retaliation for

their own mother's treatment of them. They relive history, they cannot achieve

satisfactory friendship and they do not seek male lovers.^^ There are some elements of

this in Stark's behaviour, although the fit is not complete.

Another of Stark's friendships with a woman which is passed over in virtual silence is that

with writer Margaret Jourdain (18764951) . There are only fleeting references to

Jourdain, and an inconsequential letter from Stark. (Letters I: 138-139) There is no

suggestion that the relationship amounted to anything of significance, yet Izzard

maintains that the acquaintance indicated a far greater influence over Stark's career than

she cared to admit. She notes that the writer, Hilary Spurling,^*^ includes Stark among

the talented but discouraged young women who were inspired by Jourdain. Viva Jeyes

had enlisted Jourdain's help after Stark's broken engagement, in 1916. Stark had stayed

with her in London when preparing for her first venture in the East, and also on the

return from her subsequent ventures. In turn, Jourdain and her friend and companion,

the writer. Ivy Compton-Bumett had stayed at L'Arma, in the 1920s. Izzard feels that

The relationship between Anton Besse and Stark is dealt with more fully in Appendix I. Deborah Kaplan. "Representing Two Cultures: jane Austen's Letters", in Shari Benstock (1988). 211-229. p. 215.

29. Janet Todd. Women's Friendship in Literature. New York: Columbia University Press. 1980. p. 2-3. 30. Hilary Spurling. Ivy: The Life ofL Comptm-Burrxett. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1984. p. 316.

36

]ourdain has had at least as much influence upon Stark as Professor Ker. She concludes that a debt to Jourdain's style is evident in Stark's writing. She suggests that Jourdain had been dropped from Stark's narrative because of Jourdain's subsequent preference for Ivy Compton-Bumett. (Izzard: 221-2) It is true that Stark's future writing career occupied her thoughts far more than her V.A.D. training ever did. Jourdain may well be the unnamed woman for whom Stark mentioned that she had worked in the British Museum while she was hunting for likely subjects for her own writing. However, Izzard also seeks to make a case that Stark was more closely associated with lesbian relationships than can be proved. It should be remembered that she and Buddicom quarrelled over a man.

Mrs Stark inspired friendship in people and proved adept at discovering people with influential relatives who could offer introductions and smooth Stark's path in the East. She seems to have played an unacknowledged role in making Stark's trips possible. Similarly, Lady Iveagh, who lived in Asolo, was indirectly a key figure in Stark's first Arabian journey. Her sister was married to Lord Halifax, Britain's Foreign Minister in the Chamberlain government in 1938.^^ In 1934, Lord Halifax provided Stark with an introduction to influential people in the Yemen (Letters II: 182), and Lady Iveagh took her to the London House of Commons. (Letters II: 152) Tlie orchestration of people who could assist her travels was clearly well under way. Combined evidence leads to the conclusion that Stark was ungenerous in acknowledging those who had helped her. It has already been suggested that she wrote people out of her autobiography whom she perceived had offended her but they cannot all have done so, despite Izzard's belief. I conclude that it was part of a deliberate policy on Stark's behalf not to acknowledge any debts towards other people. The result is disjointed, but it focuses the autobiographical narrative squarely upon Stark and her exploits alone, making her appear to be an entirely self-made woman.

Arabic loomed large in Stark's life. She studied it sporadically in San Remo, London and Rome but without committing herself to it. Like education or nursing, it was a means to an end, never an end in itself. Stark started to take Arabic lessons in 1921 but only really had the leisure in which to study and dream of travel when she fell ill with a vague and lengthy gastric problem in the early nineteen twenties. In an apparently random and sudden action, she was baptized a Presbyterian in Bordighera in 1925, and "On the 18th of November, though I was still very delicate, with a blood pressure of only 78 instead of 130, I sailed in the Lloyd Triestino for Beirut - and my travels in the East began." (Traveller's Prelude: 333)

31. Molly Izzard. Freya Stark: A Biography. London: Hodder & Stoughton. 1993. p. 135.

37

This unheralded announcement is a weakness in die narrative. Nothing had lead up to

the decision. I gather that her still-unmarried state, her lack of visible achievement and

her enigmatic relationship with her mother inspired it. Izzard suggests that she was

emulating Lawrence of Arabia and so chose Syria to explore (Izzard: 54) but 1 think that

she wanted a job and Syria happened to offer the best prospects of one. She travelled

bearing many introductions. Among them was one from lecturers at the School of

Oriental Studies of London University to the head of the Quaker Mission School in

Brumana, Syria. (Izzard: 48) This probably had more bearing on her destination than

Lawrence of Arabia. She probably also hoped to find eligible bachelors, and less

competition for their favours in the Middle East, and judging from the number of letters

she wrote to her mother, she wanted very much to win back her approval. Her baptism

was apparently designed to recommend her to the Christian Missionary Society, in the

hope that they might offer her a job. (Izzard: 54)

Exactly who was ultimately responsible for the employment of Stark in wartime is difficult

to judge. She had done her lobbying well, and apparently three government departments

had requested her services. {Letters III: 277) The Ministry of Information employed her in

London in a permanent capacity, (Letters III: 272) but it was the Colonial Office (Letters

III: 275) which sent her to Aden as South Arabian expert. (Letters III: 273) She was

gratified that she would not be tied to Aden, rather a remote post, but would proceed to

Cairo at a later date. (Letters III: 278) Before leaving London she conferred with Malcolm

MacDonald, Secretary of State for Colonies. They spoke of "Zionist nonsense" and of her

interest in propaganda in the Yemen, where Italian fascists were active. (Letters III: 275)

She was implacably anti-Fascist, Fascism being apparently enthusiastically supported by

her brother-in-law. Clearly, she was already a woman of influence. However, her boss in

Aden, Stewart Perowne, did not seem to be aware of it. He was surprised and unhelpful

when Cairo claimed her, and also annoyed at her promotion and doubling of salary. She

had spent her time in Aden editing Reuters' reports for die Aden press. Izzard suggests

that her employment was in a dual capacity, and that her true brief was with the Middle

East Intelligence Centre, not with the Ministry of Information, Middle East Propaganda

section, and that it was for the former that she performed her work in Yemen. (Izzard:

138) This does seem to account for Stark's apparent freedom to move around.

She never posed as a scholar^ she was surrounded by too many real scholars, yet

prominent British and American people gained the impression that she would make an

Although her late venture into classical scholarship, Rome on the Euphrates (1966) was a step in that direction.

38

adequate spokesperson on Arab aspirations in 1943-1944. East is West (1945) was written

in response to that request. The book was her usual graceful personal travel narrative -

but it seemed dated to some and surprized others who had expected more political depth.

Izzard describes it somewhat unfairly as a "pot boiler"^^ but she was not justified in her

decision to resign from her job in order to write it. She had miscalculated her finances,

erring in the expectation that she could live comfortably without regular employment or

that the Foreign Office would offer her a job on its completion.

Stark creates her own myth and the lines of construction are sometimes faintly and

sometimes clearly visible, when Stark's vision appears to be distorted. Her actual travels

and her government position amounted to little. Her job in propaganda was of her own

creation. She made much of little with the aid of numerous influential contacts. Her

travels often lasted for a few weeks at most. However, if she were dissatisfied with the

result of her autobiography, and it seems that she was:

The extraordinary thing is that my reading gives me no idea of what the person (myselO is like. I suppose one is too much inside. Anyway, it seems to me to read more like a nineteenth-century novel than real life. (Letters VIII: 187-188)

then we should not be too surprised. The autobiographical theory at the beginning of this

chapter alerts us to the fact that all efforts are doomed, and those by women particularly

so. However, we can see through and beyond her single, dominating vision, to events

which are twisted and distorted, so reaching the true imprint of Stark's personality on the

picture that she chose to create. A sub-textual reading of the story she offers reveals

another picture and it is often the reverse of the picture she chose to present. The loving

father, mother and sister were a myth. The trusted father substitute did not love her

wisely, creating inner conflicts. In contrast, she felt free and able to exaggerate in her

portrait of her brother-in-law, di Roascio. It was his carelessness that had ruined her

looks, her budding sexuality, and her chances of marriage, or so she believed. The

combined effects were to lead her inwards towards hypochondria and outwards towards

exploration and later to a nervous and unsuccessful marriage, in a personality of dazzling

contras ts and intractabil i ty. Chapte r 2 considers aspects ignored by Stark's

autobiography, including how Stark's discontent eventually persuaded her to move out of

the family circle and become a famous explorer.

33. Molly Izzard. "A Hundred Years of Wanderlust". The Observer. 31 January, 1993. 31,

39

CHAPTER 2

DIVINE DISCONTENT AND PSYCHONEUROSIS - THE PROFILE OF AN EXPLORER

Chapter 1 revealed that Stark was disappointed in her social life, education and suitors,

while the motif of her troubled relationship with her mother is woven hauntingly

throughout. Stark felt that she was fast ageing, and had no visible achievements,

although she had begun to study Arabic in her sickness. However, her decision to go to

Syria to practice speaking Arabic is quite unexpected, since Stark had developed digestive

problems of the long, lingering variety and she declared herself quite unable to recover,

although often, she did not seem ill at all. Her behaviour rouses suspicions that she was

exaggerating.

Susan Sontag observes that:

The Romantics invented invalidism as a pretext for leisure, and for dismissing bourgeois obligations in order to live only for one's art. It was a way of retiring from the world without having to take responsibility for the decision...^

Other observers have noted the creative uses to which illness - greatly magnified or purely

imaginary - can be put, and George Pickering draws attention to the role that illness plays

in the lives of some writers and social reformers, like Charles Darwin (1809-1882) and

Florence Nightingale (1820-1910). Nightingale was distracted by the constant trivial

interruptions of her mother and sister while she was studying the reform of the War

Office. As in the case of Alice James, which is discussed below, the weight of society

supported their belief that an unmarried daughter's time was at anybody's disposal. She

fell sick when they interrupted her, but she was still able to work, observed Pickering.^

She was diagnosed as suffering from neurasthenia and dilation of the heart, which was

attributed to overwork. Nightingale could keep her relatives at bay only by falling sick.

She was prescribed bed-rest, which merely perpetuated her symptoms, but she stayed in

bed and worked with the same unrelenting momentum for fifty-three years after the initial

diagnosis. Her heart never became "normal", and she never got up. Sickness had die

gratifying effect of increasing her status, as well as keeping her mother away, and leading

statesmen were obliged to make appointments if they wanted to see her. Without her

1- Susan Sontag. Illness 05 MetapKor. London: Allen Lane. 1979. p 33-34. Sir George Pickering. Creative Malady: Illness in the lives and minds of Charles Darwin... London: Allen &Unwin . 1974. p. 167.

40

illness, she could not have found the leisure in which to work.

Jean Strouse cites another example of the manner in which females may deal acceptably

with frustration: the case of American diarist, Alice James (1848-1892)^, who was obliged

to be her father's companion while her talented brothers, William (1842-1910) and

Henry (1843-1916), one a psychologist-philosopher, the other a novelist, pursued their

own independent careers. Her condition was diagnosed variously as "neurasthenia,

hysteria, rheumatic gout, suppressed gout, cardiac complication, spinal neurosis, nervous

hyperesthesia and spiritual crisis."^ These diagnoses are meaningless, as Pickering, himself

a medical man, attests, (Pickering: 166) but impressive, and meant that James was often

too sick to act as her father's companion. Strouse concludes that the sickness was an

expression of frustration at a life of boredom and wasted talents. Only in this way could

she command her own time: sickness could set her free. Good health was only a threat to

her freedom.

In the case of Stark, she noted with some surprise that she was unable to express strongly

held emotions permissibly:

My feelings always seem to be like the Kootenay river, no life on the surface: I do not even know that I am feeling anything at all. Then suddenly discover that the emotion has been working away all the time, and there am 1 - shattered, with not the wrinkle of an eyelid to show for it. (Beyond Euphrates: 53}

Stark wrote these words in 1929, when she had just returned from a three months' visit to

a primitive part of Canada where her father lived. Despite what she believed to be her

approving stance, she revealed a dislike of her father's simple life, his rustic friends, and

his rural pursuits. She was thoroughly bored, and thought that she faced a second

operation upon her return to England. However, her bodily vigour in Canada led me to

consider the possibility that she too might merely be expressing frustration with the

simple life and unrewarding conversation.

Some interesting effects and patterns emerge in all of Stark's illnesses. Apart from her

scalp accident, which she felt, (doubtfully, 1 think, in the long term) regained her the love

and attention of her mother, she had suffered from typhoid in 1915-1916. At first, there

was nothing much wrong with her except a vague malaise. Mild typhoid was diagnosed

many months later, but the illness had a gratifying result in resolving a troubling situation

when her marriage to Guido Ruata had to be postponed. As the previous chapter reveals.

3. The Diary of Alice James. Introduced by L. Edel. London: Hart Davies. 1965. 4- Jean Strouse. Alice James: A Biography. London: Jonathan Cape. 1981. p ix-x.

41

the relationship was problematical since not only were Ruata's feelings for her in doubt

but her family were against the union. It created all manner of tensions until sickness

occurred and the issue resolved itself when her fiance broke off the engagement.

A second equally vague and long-drawn out illness occurred when she moved to

Ventimiglia in 1918. She says that: "in a year or two [I] began to realize that I was

failing". (Traveller's Prelude: 249) The "failing" was apparently a psychological and not a

physical state. The problem was that she "felt an immense bitterness" towards her

mother, whom she felt cared little for xhe waste of her youth. (Traveller's Prelude: 249)

Then in 1924, at the age of 31, she dien complained of:

a slow illness, nothing but accumulated worry and fatigue. They diagnosed it as gastric ulcers and were trying to cure it by diet and rest. For a week I was given nothing at all but white of egg, and for the rest of this year lived on milk, raw eggs, boiled macaroni and ham, and had to spend more than half my time lying down though in the other half I went about and even went ski-ing. (Traveller's Prelude: 306)

It was a strange illness, enabling her to make a notable climb of Monte Rosa, a rare feat

for a woman, but nevertheless she says:

I was desperately ill by now. My first note of going to a doctor was in April 1922; most of the four years after were spent on sofas, while carrying on my arabic, and trying, at intervals, to lead an ordinary life...my mother...was full of affection, but not a concrete burden, even to the ordering of food,^ was ever lifted from me...

By the winter of 1924, 1 could not go on any longer and they said it was necessary to operate for gastric ulcer if I ever wanted to be cured. (Traveller's Prelude: 311-312)

TTie wound did not heal and Stark played an active part in urging and aiding the hospital

nuns to probe the wound. The doctor said that: "If one organ had been weak in any way

I should have died." (Traveller's Prelude: 313) Shades of the kind of masochism in T.E.

Lawrences's life are detectable in this action and from then on are never entirely absent.

She did not recover. In April 1925, she needed "two months or so of a quiet life", (Letters

I: 91) and by May it had become a year, although she was playing badminton and going

for walks. (Letters I: 91) In July she said: "I can only just walk a few steps yet, as it brings

on pain and sickness". (Letters I: 93). In later life, doctors confirmed that the operation

had not been necessary at all. (Letters II: 2-3) It should be noted that the letters which

write about this illness were mainly addressed to her father. She offers her continuing

illness as an excuse for her inability to earn her living, looking after paying guests.

Curiously, as will be seen later in this chapter, she reproached Mrs Stark for cooking her such fatty food, and knowing nothing about invalid diets, suggesting that the "concrete burdens" were imaginary.

42

Alice James' illnesses followed a similarly endless path, and Strouse said: "in punishing

herself, in effect, with physical suffering, she exacted a measure of revenge - making her

family suffer in sympathy, and forcing them to care for her (in both senses of the phrase)".

(Strouse: 185).

A family friend, Gabriel de Bottini, apparently proposed marriage to Stark but was

rejected petulantly: she was too sick to diink about it. He passed out of her life, quickly

marrying another, making the reality of his proposal frankly doubtful. In July, 1925, she

relapsed and was in:

bed for a week to be under observation...! am afraid it will be a long affair, though he [the doctor] is quite cheerful about a complete cure in the end. 1 am afraid it will mean a good while still on my back, living on milk...{Letters I: 94 )

The degree of artless and unintended self-revelation in this account of Stark's illnesses

makes fascinating reading. Local peasants in the mountains where she was recuperating

raised doubts about the reality of her illness and: "TTie signorina cannot be very ill; her

voice rings with such energy", (Traveller's Prelude: 315) concluded the local carabinieri

laconically, when she feuded with her landlord. Even if they were doubtful. Stark was

not. "I needed constant care..." Mrs Jeyes and another woman friend arrived and:

"Between the two of them, every strain was taken from me", (Traveller's Prelude: 315) she

relates happily.

Subsequent history confirmed that what she had developed was hypochondria and she

made her plans accordingly:

I will go to Viva's for the winter: the wretched doctor tells me at least a year of practically invalid life is necessary, and it is easier to manage in her comfortable house. Sometimes I cannot help feeling that it is almost better to have no life at all...l suppose the ten years of more or less constant strain have told more than I thought, and I cannot recuperate as I used...

1 have been walking a little - about a mile, and that is the limit 1 am not to exceed for the next year." (Letters I: 95-96)

The retreat to the Jeyes's suggests that her mother, (by then in her seventies), was unequal

to the onslaught. Mrs Jeyes's doctor: "told me that the whole trouble had been

carelessness in childhood^ and strain later on, and that my last year's relapses could have

been avoided: I must spend several months in bed." (Traveller's Prelude: 322) "I was

thirty-two and had done nothing except housekeep." (Traveller's Prelude: 323) The

"illness" dragged on until May of 1927, when, somewhat abruptly, she reported: "On the

18th of November, though 1 was still very delicate...! sailed...for Beirut." (Traveller's

This reference is obscure. Typhoid was an adult illness.

43

Prelude: 333) There had been nothing in her condition, apart from the tell-tale Monte

Rosa climb, to suggest that Freya regarded herself as fit for the life of an explorer.

Despite her changed circumstances. Stark remained unhappy, even in the East, though for

a different reason. She admitted to a long and hopeless love affair which kept her there

for seven years and according to Caroline Moorehead, the man was Captain Vyvyan Holt

(1896-1960), "an exceptional Arabist, traveller and lover of the desert". (Moorehead: 45)

He was Oriental Secretary at the Baghdad Embassy, and there is no evidence that he was

ever interested in Stark. He was the eternal bachelor. The relationship largely consisted

of negatives - of his galloping off in the opposite direction to herself on horseback, in

being "snubby", in failing to invite her to dinner at the Embassy, and in finding her a

temporary job with unbecoming alacrity when she needed the money to return to Italy.

She was gratified by this last attention, when a little thought might have tempered her

enthusiasm. In fact, far from being encouraging, his actions indicated a desire to distance

himself from her as quickly as possible. Stark wrote a long, introspective and miserable

letter to her mother from Persia, in May 1930:

I am so very depressed this evening - feeling so old, [Stark was thirty-seven] and as if my whole life were wasted...with so much less health and strength and power than most and already halfway through..To be just middle-aged with no particular charm or beauty and no position is a dreary business...most dreadfully lonely, envying all these women with their nice clean husbands...no one seems to want women very much...Well, 1 think it must be because no one any longer makes love to me except when they are drunk. (Letters I: 269)

This letter indicates the attraction of the East for Stark. She was part of the fishing fleet.

She wanted a husband now that her mother, whom she had apparently cast in the

masculine role of help-meet to the weak, had failed her. She was a woman living in a

world which offered a woman nothing except marriage.

In Scotland in September 1930, she received a definitive diagnosis of her gastric troubles:

The doctor found the trouble, exactly where and as I thought - a sort of paralysis of the intestine - existing long before the operation which was possibly quite unnecessary. It...fits in with what I have found, that a very active life on simple food is what suits me best. The disease is not fatal anyway, only of course it is pretty well chronic and not really curable. (Letters II: 2 - 3 )

It appeared to be a carte-blanche to continue her travels and also not to be put upon at

home by her mother. However, there were problems apart from her lack of youth and

physical charms. By all accounts she was anxious to marry but she found the prospect of

physical relationships distasteful. She went on holiday with Judge Eric Maxwell in

Baghdad and found his attempts at "love making" embarrassing and she discouraged him

vigorously: "I have been dreadfully harassed by an old friend who...went off his head and

44

wanted me to care about him", she told Buddicom. " I find in myself a host of old-fashioned ideas on morals that I hardly suspected". (Letters II: 99)

In 1930, she went from Baghdad to Hamadan to learn Persian and to explore Assassins' castles. Her success as an explorer was assured in 1931, when she relocated an unidentified Assassins' castle (Lamiasar) in Persia, looted graves for bronzes and explored a mountain. Publicity and medals were her rewards. However, her successes tend to mask the question of exactly why she explored Persia, for the Arabic language had been the focus of her studies for some years, and she had travelled to Syria and Iraq to perfect it. TTie change of direction was due to Captain Holt, whose attention she was anxious to retain. He was responsible for her learning Persian, in 1930. (Letters I: 231) His influence was evident when she added Russian, another of his languages, to her studies (Letters II: 112), yet she never acknowledged his help. He too had offended her and was written out of her story.

Accounts of her Persian trips form the substance of The Valleys of the Assassins (1934) which was not a sustained narrative but the account of serial trips in Persia. These trips were not exactly an unqualified success but as newsworthy adventures, they were unrivalled. She came to police attention several times and was escorted to the frontier. She failed to find either valuable bronzes or buried treasure on the 1932 trip but she did earn notoriety when: "One of the Intelligence people here" suggested that she accompanied a young man who wanted to go on a treasure hunt" (Letters II: 100), and a number of other successes came her way. She was well-known in Baghdad since her first book Baghdad Sketches was, as its title implies, a series of short prose extracts which were first published in the Baghdad Times. (1932) Who's Who requested details of her life in 1933 and her career took off with unexplained and dazzling rapidity. Exactly who was behind it is conjectural, although diere were a number of contenders.

The response of the press and the Royal Geographic Society to her Persian travels must have been beyond her wildest dreams. Her book was dramatically enhanced by the tale of her death-defying illness. She fell sick on 11 August, 1931: 'Tor nearly a week I lay diere, not expecting to recover...I lived on white of egg and sour milk, and had barley cooked in my water so that the taste might tell me if it were boiled." (Valleys of the Assassins'^: 255)

Such prudence merely indicates that she was sick, but not very. She was cared for by her servant, Ismail and a village woman named Zora but despite this, she "slipped from coma to coma". (Valleys: 256) However, her situation was not nearly so perilous as she implies.

7- Referred to subsequently as "Valleys".

45

and her letters again undercut her book by revealing that she still managed to hold court

among the villagers: "they come in groups and squat by my bed for medicines". (Letters II:

29) T h e n she apparently developed heart trouble: "By the third day 1 was no better, and

my heart began to give trouble" (Valleys: 257) and so she sent for medicine to the nearest

town, Qazvin, receiving digitalis.

A comparison of the dates in her book and letters reveals inaccuracies of detail. She was

not at the shrine for a week, but only for four days. (Letters II: 28) O n the fifth day, she

decided to go to Teheran hospital, but decided to continue her exploration of the

mountain instead, which casts doubt on the gravity and nature of her illness. She seemed

to over-indulge in medication and behave in a generally foolhardy fashion, revealing that

she injected herself with camphor "to steady my troublesome heart, and fed myself

on...brandy" (Valleys: 259). She then travelled all day. These actions reveal a mind in

turmoil, which is not surprising in view of the drug-ingestion and a body which would

have benefitted from less strenuous exertion. She finally arrived at the village of Shutur

Khan, near an Assassin fortress, the Rock of Alamut, feeling better, but then in the

evening:

suddenly a new and strange crisis seized me: every ounce of life seemed to be sucked away; I was shrivelled up with a withering dryness, soon succeeded by floods of perspiration; and I knew by a slight unpleasant shiver that this must be malaria. (Valleys: 261)

Next day, a doctor on vacation, living five hours away, diagnosed malaria and dysentery,

and he injected her with camphor, emetine, and quinine: "in the most surprising

quantities...His ideas on quinine ran to three times the maximum marked in my medical

guide". (Valleys: 262) Stark mentions using a medical guide called Hints to Travellers,

published by the Royal Geographical Society, rad:ier often. The 1937 edition of the guide

recommends a dosage of only 30 grains of quinine or atebrin every twenty-four hours, in

either three or five small doses, and says encouragingly that "the patient is soon himself

again."® Stark does not seem to have read that part.

Far from resting, die doctor took her to his village, necessitating a long journey the next

day. "I fainted twice on to the saddle-bags" whilst dressing and packing, she reports.

(Valleys: 263) She spent a week convalescing and "The doctor visited me two or diree

times a day to inject quinine. A hundred grains daily for three days definitely frightened

away the malaria." (Valleys: 265) The doctor himself was an opium addict, which may

have added little to his judgement. She recovered sufficiently to travel on, despite the

Royal Geographical Society, London. Hints to Travellers. Eleventh Edition. Vol. 2. 1937. London: John Murray, p. 415. The book is mentioned in The Southern Gates of Arabia, p. 237.

46

apparently heavy overdose.

By no means discouraged, she measured mountain heights with her instruments and climbed what was reputed to be King Solomon's throne: "Of that climb, which lasted four and a half hours, I have only a vague distressing memory." (Valleys: 300) She: "felt the height for the first time in my life. It caused a cold clamminess at the back of my neck, and a blackness over my eyes...I crawled along, resting every fifty paces or so with a leaden feeling of nightmare upon me." (Valleys: 300-301)

The effort was in vain, since she had apparently been led to climb the wrong mountain. In fact, it is improbable that she could climb any mountain in the physical condition in which she depicts herself, although it is not likely that she had suffered from malaria, since she diagnosed it again on her next trip, (also with the aid of her handbook) whilst making no mention of a previous bout. The second diagnosis was equally incorrect: quinine overdose is prosaic but more likely in both cases. Tlie story is however, most dramatic, easily rivalling the highly-coloured plots of the infant film industry.

December 1933 saw the start of a long-drawn out scalp operation, officially to alleviate pain from a nerve in her forehead, but really to make herself more attractive to Captain Holt. The procedure was simple, but she took eleven weeks to recover in an English hospital. Her slow recovery was evidently due to depression, from which she really did suffer frequently. It seems that Captain Holt had been invited to Asolo (Letters II: 172) but he did not answer for a long time. He had been seriously ill, but something else must have passed between them, since she concluded: "my useless love burnt itself out: only love that is answered can last for ever". (Coast of Incense: 18) Just as with the di Roascio affair, there had never been any indication that he reciprocated her fondness.

She then turned her attention to Southern Arabia. Exactly why she did not say, but it seemed likely that neither Baghdad nor Captain Holt had anydiing further to offer her. She went to the Hadhramaut in January, 1935, where she again apparently faced death through illness: "I very nearly died. I lay there for a fortnight facing, like someone condemned, a death that seemed both impossible and inevitable." (Coast of Incense: 19) The illness was measles, mild measles:

47

For three nights I was actually delirious, pursuing in broken and miserable dreams a search for some vague thing, undulating and alive, which had been given me and on whose recovery my happiness depended; it was, I thought, the secret of happiness, an object simple but elusive... (Southern Gates of Arabia^: 137)

The delirium of finding die secret of the universe sounds very much like the experience of people undergoing religious conversion and this point will be pursued later. Despite visions of the uncomfortable conditions that sickness in the Hadhramaut suggested, the area was by no means primitive. Stark was cared for by an Arab woman who did not spare Stark's feelings: "'Qumi,' she used to say: 'get up,' regardless of my condition: and when I told her that I had a fever: 'We all have that,' she would answer cheerfully." (Southern Gates: 137) Had there been a few more courageous people like that, then Stark would have been doomed to a healthy existence. Her interest in her Arab helper's remarkable appearance, and the number of peddlers and visitors she entertained, suggests no great distress. After the measles, she developed a cough. Her health handbook, which she would have been much better off without, suggested that it might turn to pneumonia, and seizing this excuse, she wrote to the influential Al-Kaf Sayiids, asking them to send a car to collect her. They did so, and she was well enough to enjoy her comfortable trip, even attending a wedding at Meshed on her journey, before arriving at Seiyun, to recover in the guest house and garden of the Sultan. We may infer that her real problem was loneliness, depression, too many inappropriate injections, an extraordinary diet, and a healthy dose of hypochondria.

She continued her journey, only to fall prey to "heart disease":

1 was losing my strength. I...listened to a tiny pulse in my ear...and waited for it to cease...Salim lifted my head at intervals to feed me, with as much tenderness as any nurse...(SoutKem Gates: 267)

Stark has what amounts to an obsession about non-existent heart disease. George Pickering observes that in the First World War: "it was taught that an elevated heart rate meant the heart muscle was affected by disease, which...[was] untrue. (Pickering: 30) Mahmud, the chemist from Tarim saved her, though whether from injudicious medication, hypochondria, or even over-eating, it is difficult to judge:

He, good man, felt what pulse there was, remarked that it was angina pectoris and dyspepsia, a cornbination which surprised me, and proceeded to inject loconol in my vein; it had a swift effect and seemed to send an elixir of life once more to the exhausted heart. {Southern Gates:

269}

The dyspepsia was due to being fed by her servant as she lay there - hardly a death-bed

Subsequently referred to as Southern Gates.

48

occupation. "Mahmud took over the direction of affairs, which had lain on my shoulders

almost as heavily as my illness, and I turned gratefully to sleep" (Southern Gates: 270) she

reported.

T h e illness solved her problems. She had several times expressed great misgivings about

the Shabwa venture, despite it having been carefully set up for her by her numerous

contacts. Illness supplied a respectable way out. On 14 March, 1935, four R.A.F. bomber

planes, receiving permission from the Air Ministry, arrived with a doctor. Against

regulations, she was evacuated by stretcher to Aden the next morning, being judged, she

said, too weak to withstand the evening heat, even though she had been taking short

walks for four days before their arrival. TTie Air Ministry waived the cost of evacuation.

Two days later, she wrote to Buddicom: "I am quite out of danger" (Letters II: 272) and to

her mother: "nothing is really wrong with me except absolute exhaustion due to the

measles and to the fact that I was unable to diagnose the symptoms that followed them

and did all the wrong things." (Letters II: 273) It was confirmed by a doctor in Aden that

her heart was "remarkably strong and will soon be as good as new - just a case of strain."

(Coast of Incense: 93) She continued to be given assurances of this nature on several

cont inents . She was also famous: "The Secretary of State telegraphed yesterday to

enquire". (Letters II: 275) A fuss continued to be made of her and on the journey home

from Aden, in April, 1935, she was carried up onto the deck in the afternoons. Illness was

very gratifying.

Whenever Stark is sick, by-play is directed towards her mother. Even knowing that she

did no t have heart disease, she still wrote from Aden hospital to say meaningfully: "I shall

have to spend a good many quiet months without stairs or hills or emotions, but the heart

should be as good as ever once it has got over the shock". (Letters II: 274) She wanted

her mother to worry, and not to expect any work out of her. Mrs Stark continued to

disappoint her daughter, and Stark continued to recuperate in other people's houses.

Stark must have heard some fairly outspoken comments on her state of health but die

publicity she received made die temporary embarrassment worthwhile. Publicity would

have been muted had she been unsuccessful but healthy. It did not enhance her

reputation as a real traveller with explorers like Wilfrid Thesiger, who is reputed to have

said scornfully, of one unnamed 'intrepid' traveller: "Oh, So-and-So! She's never been

anywhere one couldn't go by taxi."^^ It was bodi true and untrue of Stark - in fact, few

10. Gavin Young. Return to the Marshes: Life with the Marsh Arabs of Iraq. London: Collins. 1977, p. 12.

49

people ventured where she did, even if there were more taxis around than seems reasonable to purists.

Stark spent an idyllic summer in the South of France with the family of Anton Besse, a

man with whom she had fallen in love on first meeting in Southern Arabia. (See

Appendix 1) In October 1937, she was again in Aden, preparing for a second journey to

the Hadhramaut. It was to be a joint expedition with Gertrude Caton Thompson and

Elinor Gardiner and was, if anything even more disastrous than her first effort, provoking

a life-long feud with Caton Thompson. All fell sick with bad colds and throat infections

but Stark's record almost defied belief. On the journey out, she had stopped in Egypt to

recuperate in hospital from her various ills. (Stark often booked herself into hospitals in

the East.) She was in hospital for two weeks in January, when she was airlifted from the

Hadhramaut to Aden in a Besse plane, and would have been airlifted a second time, had

she not refused to enter the plane when it landed. Twice she ordered rescue cars on her

lone trip at the end of the Hadhramaut sector. Her mind was in turmoil, and Caton

Thompson and Gardiner confirm that Stark leafed endlessly through her health hand

book, all the while demanding their attention. (Izzard: 117)

In a surprising but understandable turn-around, in the circumstances. Stark played down

her ilkiess to the Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society, describing the venture in

the following terms: "My illness was a great nuisance - but did not interfere for more than

a few days with my work which consisted entirely of talking to Arabs and was chiefly done

from my bed." (Letters III: 211)

Later in life she commented of sickness in Turkey in 1956 to an old friend, Victor

Cunard:

My indisposition was caught from a horrible old village Muhtar who would spit all over the guest room fireplace. But the trouble is that 1 have lost any philosophy about illness I may ever have had and always think that whatever it is is probably the end (when out in these sort of countries I mean.) (Letters VII: 178)

Stark's response to her mother is always interesting: she wrote in bitter anger from a

European sanatorium where she was being treated afterwards, not for her heart, which one

might expect, but for her digestion:

50

Lucy Beach and Lavinia [family friends] both told me they could never stand our fatty cooking, and of course it just starts everything all over again every time with me. I cannot help thinking with great bitterness that after thirteen years of health depending entirely on diet, you have not yet troubled to learn what is and what is not digestible: [Stark was forty-five years old] what ha{)pens to food when fried or boiled or baked? You cannot find this out of your own head but a book on diets for invalids would have saved me many months of illness and nearly constant pain in all these years. This is not to ask you to do so, for 1 have done this so often and I know it is no use. But I shall not be able to stay much in Asolo. I will come now, and next year find some quiet little hole somewhere.

Please do not write about this. It is almost more than I can bear altogether. Thirteen years is a long bite and sometimes when 1 get these relapses I wish I could end it all. (Letters III: 220)

Stark seems so have forgotten that she herself was supposed to have been in charge of the

family housekeeping ever since she was thirteen and that "not a concrete burden, even to

the ordering of meals" had ever been lifted from her, even in sickness. The veiled threat

of suicide with which she concludes is not the first. Her pose is designed to elicit a

response from her mother: and it is constantly frustrated. Instead, she continues to have

her health investigated from other people's houses or from private nursing homes. TTiree

months later, in November, 1938, she complains about "chronic fatigue syndrome":

it is now fourteen years that I have never done anything without the feeling of fatigue: and I have only started on one of my expeditions without wondering if 1 was strong enough to face it. Every time I hoped to be free, and to begin a life worth living, I have been pulled back again -and this between the ages of thirty and forty-five when life should be sweet: and very few people have ever seen through the wretchedness of it or thought it other than natural to see me as a cheerful semi-invalid. (Letters III: 234)

N o formal diagnosis of physical illness was ever made^ Her emotional outbursts relate

to long-standing problems with her mother, since immediately after, she resumed a

daunting work and social schedule in England, where she gave four B.B.C. talks and she

returned to Syria in March, 1939. Hyperactivity was common, in between the sofa

episodes. Her war-time colleagues complained that she worked immoderate hours, was

tireless, and expected them to be so too, exhausting everybody including herself in the

process, suggesting that whatever her problems might be, they were not physical ones.

The outbreak of war provided her with work and money, and eventually with a husband,

but with no lasting satisfaction. Her mother died in November, 1942, when Stark was in

Baghdad: "I feel now that there is no one to whom my successes or failures matter very

much". (Letters IV: 260) Effectively, Stark ceased to travel much in die East, She was

also denied further opportunity of working out a satisfactory relationship with her mother

- except for the solace of rewriting aspects of the relationship in her autobiography after

her mother's death.

1 Though she did claim a burst appendix on the journey to Canada after the war.

51

This chapter started out with speculation on what made an explorer, and with the role

illness played in supplying the necessary leisure and justification. Stark's position was

complex. A need to put distance between herself and her mother was one of her most

obvious needs - but it was, simultaneously, the most ambiguous of achievements, because

she also needed to be near her mother. It clashed with her need to live a life more

appropriate to her aspirations and talents: it may have prevented her from marrying,

although part of her very much wanted to. She is full of exasperating contradictions.

Explorers are independent people: Stark was not. Loneliness was assuaged by illness,

requiring solacing care, which she sought from everybody. Her handbook on health and

her suggestible state created conditions for the diagnosis of ills from which she did not

suffer, and they were then "confirmed" and encouraged by inappropriate medication. Her

subsequent prostration was a call to her apparently unresponsive mother, but it still had

gratifying consequences and opened the most surprising of doors. Stark admitted to fear

when confiding in Sir Sydney Cockerell about her conflicts whilst travelling:

it was, if you understand - as you certainly will - a fight between me and the Demon of Fear which is apt to get the better of one in illness in Arabia...I decided that this time it should not have everything its own way; and so went on. (Letters III: 206)

Early in her autobiography, she related a significant incident when her father: "to

encourage toughness...bribed us...if we walked across the pine wood to the far fence and

back in the dusk alone...panic was ready there to pounce...! ran with all the Eumenides

behind me, and clicked the latch upon the outer world of Fear". (Traveller's Prelude: 48-

49) The fear evoked by such solitary exploits continued to surface from time. We see one

of the most apparently confident of women, a remarkable explorer - still not exhibiting

that brand of confidence which the history of her achievements might imply.

Apart from bad family relationships and fear, there was another reason for travel. Stark

does not have the reputation for being a formally religious person but she was closely

associated with religious communities in Syria and Baghdad, Quaker and Bahai, and she

had moments when the eternal seemed very near to her. These moments are specifically

connected with illness so that when recovering from the loom accident at the age of

thirteen, she had said:

My head was bandaged; and when 1 got tired my father carried me with a struggle of tenderness that he could not express. The words "underneath are the everlasting arms" make me think of those spring days whenever I come across them. (Traveller's Prelude: 86)

After her ulcer operation in 1925, on her return home, she had another experience:

1 was...given a strong injection and a strange thing happened to me. 1 fainted, and before I came to myself again, had a curious dreadful feeling of being outside myself, trying to get back, a lost feeling. (Traveller's Prelude: 316 )

52

It was some time after this incident that she was baptized, in order to recommend herself

to teaching missions in Syria. Whilst suffering from measles in the Wadi Hadhramaut,

she heard a broadcast fragment of a church service in England:

A blurred sentence, then words solemn and clear. "The Lord keep and preserve you, in body and in soul." Those were all I heard... and left only a vague sound of prayer: but I sat shaken, moved by the comfort of those words and filled with loneliness. As it was quite dark, and I was exhausted, I wept. (Southern Gates: 258)

William James describes the "conversion experience" in similar terms:

the subject works his emotions up to the breaking point, at the same time resisting their physical manifestations, such as quickened pulse, etc., and then suddenly lets them have their full sway over his body. The relief is something wonderful, and the pleasurable effects of the emotions are experienced to the highest degree.^^

Stark complained of inexplicable prostration after her illnesses and typically she wrote

from Le Paradou, where she stayed with the Besses in July, 1935:

it is all a restful harmony pouring peacefully into one's soul. 1 am much better and begin work on the strength of it: but what a hard labour it is - every word seeming to have to be squeezed out of my brain like grape juice out of a wine press, by a painful crushing process...That is just what I am beginning to feel again about myself, body and soul. (Coast of Incense: 113)

The words "body and soul" reflect the words of the Communion service which she heard

relayed in the Hadhramaut, and the "grape juice" and the "wine press" are biblical

references (Isaiah 5: 1-2). Molly Izzard thinks that it was the result of the strain of her

adventures:

One cannot help wondering how many of the ailments that accompanied Freya's adventures were psychosomatic in origin. The achievement of her programme of action brought tensions resolved in physical collapses and hospital...she walked on knives to do so. (Izzard: 77-78)

and that her need to travel was bound up in self-identity:

Freya's awareness of her own singularity in slipping through the net of conventional experience grew as her travels continued. It was d:ie shedding of identity, the casting off, the loosening of holds that entry into the fluidity of native life promised her; an abandonment of self such as others find in the many varieties of religious experience. (Izzard: 309)

I am more inclined to think that Stark went consciously seeking this kind of experience: it

was part of her reason for going. There are few tales of sexual adventure in Stark's

autobiography: they are mainly tales of advances which she virtuously resisted. Her

surrender was of another kind. She surrendered in sickness to anybody who was willing,

and some who were not, both at home and on her travels. She liked men to carry her

12. Will iam James. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. New York: Random House. 1929. p 246.

53

around or wheel her in bath chairs and she mentions being "delicate" often and with cheerful satisfaction. It was a socially sanctioned activity.

An unassuaged yearning for her mother's care led first to illness and then to travel, and then to an uneasy combination of the two. It was a complicated dance. Lack of maternal care combined with social pressures led to the urgent need of a husband. Travel in search of a husband became another consideration. Stark was apparently lacking in physical ardour and I have suggested a few possible reasons for this in Chapter I, amongst which we should also include her mother's complex relationship with di Roascio and the resultant ostracism by the community in Dronero. Her life-long dependency upon her mother debatably tipped the balance in favour of a preference for women and illness was a respectable way of expressing it. Stark was addicted to the pleasure of swooning surrender to others in sickness.

To revert to another matter, the number of people at governmental level who were interested and highly involved in Stark's rescue from the Hadhramaut suggest that her journey was in some sense "sponsored" by the British government and that she was receiving one of the "perks" of unofficial spying. This is a subject which is pursued at greater length, particularly in Chapter Five.

54

CHAPTER 3

ii ORIENTALISM'^: APPROACHES TO THE EAST IN EREYA STARK, CHARLES DOUGHTY, GERTRUDE BELL AND T.E.

LAWRENCE.

This chapter compares approaches to Arab subject matter in four writers, and examines the currently fashionable argument that travel writers create, rather than report, the foreign.

The English had absorbed a whole body of literature on the East, written from a Western point of view. European escapist fiction and poetry in the early and mid-nineteenth century sometimes has a more or less imaginary Eastern background and later in the century, popular colonial writers focused their attention, not uncritically, on the point of view and concerns of the exiled English community. Thus one arrives at the question of whether travel books tell us about foreign countries at all or whether they only reflect back to us European mythologising of them.^

Edward Said is one of a number of commentators, including more recently, Mary Louise Pratt, whose book Imperial Eyes (1992) came to my attention only recently, who have sensitized our eyes so that the very subject matter chosen by any writer on the East is open to the charge that it is "Orientalist". "Orientalism" itself is a vague term, as everyone agrees - but it is also convenient and sometimes it reappears in the guise of "Eurocentrism". It involves a whole cluster of attitudes and reactions, including "the high-handed executive attitude of nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century European colonialism".^ In this chapter, my meaning will be revealed gradually, as the writers under consideration demonstrate their position towards the East. It is their definitions which are under review, not those of Said who used examples from English and French literature to enlarge upon his contention that the East was:

the source of its civilizations and languages, its cultural contestant, and one of its deepest and most recurring images of the Other. In addition, the Orient has helped to define Europe (or the West) as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience. (Said: 1-2)

Paul Eggert. "Real or Imaginary Encounters in The Travel Book The Case of D.H. Lawrence." Studies in Prose Literature. Ed. Joy Hooton. English Department. Occasional Paper N o 5. 1985. Faculty of Military Studies, Duntroon. 20-33. p. 20. This is a commentary on Peter Bishop. "Travellers in Imaginary Landscapes". Meridian. 3. 153-157. Edward Said. Orientalism. London: Routledge Kegan Paul. 1978. p. 2.

55

He feels that the world is defined as either Orient or Occident and that this definition

becomes a starting point for theories, novels, social descriptions and accounts about the

manners, customs and peoples of the Orient. The Orient is also part of the European

colonial enterprise with its network of institutions and ideas: "shot through with doctrines

of European superiority, various kinds of racism, imperialism, and dogmatic views of 'the

Oriental ' as a kind of ideal and unchanging abstraction". (Said: 8) They impose limits on

thinking about Orientalism. "European culture gained in strength and identity by setting

itself off against the Orient as a sort of surrogate and even underground self." (Said: 3) It

allows distortion and inaccuracy to flourish. Said's view is in part that writers, being

essentially outsiders, constantly put the wrong interpretation upon what they report,

belittling the country under observation. Lack of knowledge of Arabic and of Islam

compound the problem so that a whole body of inaccurate knowledge became received

wisdom in the observing community. Western views incorporate the belief that Europe is

superior to the Orient. A paternalistic attitude was developed, with the entrenched belief

tha t like an unsuccessful branch of the family, the East needs help to become more

modem, more functional, indeed more anything which might improve its perceived lowly

status.

Said and other writers' concerns with Orientalism are necessarily more complex than my

own and I am not attempting to explain their attitudes in any greater depth than this, but

rather to do something slightly different. I am concerned with tracing the attitude, over

time, of Freya Stark towards the East. I compare her with three other writers, and I am

necessarily more concerned with writing style than with the manifestation of Orientalist

concepts per se, any greater discussion of which would be inappropriate in a thesis of this

nature . I have selected passages from each author where interaction with local

communities occurs, and observe apparent attitudes. Different observations may well

have been made if the whole body of work of each writer been put to examination. It is

the authors' implied attitude towards the Orient which I am considering. 1 have not

imposed a theoretical framework upon them, although Said's argument does serve as a

constant, if at times implicit reference point.

Charles Doughty's book Travels in Arabia Deserta (1888) was partly responsible for

attracting Freya Stark to the Middle East. (Letters I: 97) She admired his writing style,

and visited his cousin (Letters II: 178), and his former home after his deadi (Letters I:

190). Doughty's travel feat was imperialist, because the pilgrimage to Mecca was

forbidden to unbelievers. He may be viewed according to one's bent as brave, foolhardy

or grossly insensitive to Arab feelings - one who came and conquered, so to speak. He

had absolutely no sympathy with Islam, being himself an ardent Christian, with no

56

obvious reason for going to Mecca, other than an outsized curiosity. TTie Haj was a huge venture, with 6,000 men and 10,000 animals on the move, and his style matched the size of the mass march:

T h e new dawn appearing we removed not yet. The day risen the tents were dismantled, the camels led in ready to dieir companies, and halted beside their loads. W e waited to hear the cannon shot which should open that year's pilgrimage...As all is up the drivers are left standing upon their feet, or sit to rest out the latest moments on their heels: they with other camp and tent servants must ride those three hundred leagues upon their bare soles, although they faint; and are to measure the ground again upward with their weary feet from the holy places.^

His writing style has always attracted comment and he is reputed to have said that he

went to Arabia "to redeem the English language from the slough into which it has fallen

since the time of Spenser'"^. It was a long way to go and his efforts were not altogether

appreciated by a sometimes mystified reading public. Edward Gamett defines his style as

"stately Elizabethan"^, but it is more accurately described as an idiosyncratic mixture of

Jacobean and nineteenth-century Anglican English. A biblical passage from the King

James version of the book of Genesis provides an interesting comparison with his unusual

style of writing: "Then Joseph came and told Pharaoh, and said, My father and my

brethren, and their flocks, and their herds, and all that they have, are come out of the

land of Canaan; and behold, they are in the land of Goshen."^ There are similarities in

the build-up to the announcement of the arrival in Goshen of Joseph's family, achieved

stylistically by the cumulation of clauses, and the repetition of "and". Both passages have

an oriental setting and refer to the mass migration of families with their domestic animals.

There are also similarities in the mixture of verb tenses. (The King James translation

apparently used the same mixed tense as the original Hebrew.) Doughty was familiar with

the idea of mass-movement in the East from the Bible: "At the commandment of the

Lord the children of Israel journeyed, and at the commandment of the Lord they pitched"

(Numbers 9:18. p. 131) and so we may infer that his conception of the Orient is

connected with the sacred.

His quirky syntax is distinctively archaic. "As all is up", he says, meaning that all the

camp furniture has been packed and loaded. The servants "measure the ground upward

Charles. M. Doughty. Travels in Arabia Deserta. Intro. T. E. Lawrence. New and definitive edition, two Volumes in one. New York: Random House. 1921. Vol. 1. p. 45. Robert Graves. Goodbye to All That. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 1960. First published Jonathan Cape 1929. p. 244. Graves quotes T.E. Lawrence on Doughty. It is rapidly evident that all of the writers under review were admirers of Doughty's style, and often of each other's. They did not develop in isolation, despite what Stark led people to believe of her own style. Charles. M. Doughty. Wanderir\gs in Arabia: Being an Abridgement of "Travels in Arabia Deserta". Arr. with Intro, by ^ w a r d Garnett. In two Vols. Duckworth: London. 1908. p. vi. Holy Bible. King James version. Genesis 47:1. Nashville, Camden, New York: Nelson. 1972. p. 45.

57

with their weary feet", instead of merely "walking". Some phrases have a familiar ring from old Anglican hymns, like "although they faint", in the words of a popular hymn: "lone and dreary, faint and weary,/through the desert thou didst go".7 The Oriental, for Doughty, represented living religion of a kind not seen in the West for hundreds of years. His constructed world is highly personal and Doughty's presence is central to the events he describes.

This is not the style or kind of writing that Freya Stark would adopt, because despite her admiration of Doughty's writing style, (and incidentally, that of T.E. Lawrence and Gertrude Bell) her religious background, her persuasions, and her motives for travel are other. Stark was curious about the pilgrimages to local shrines which she herself witnessed, but not more so than about any other aspect of Arab life. For Doughty, his writing style is at least as important as what he sees and interprets as the life of a bygone age ' and his prose is only then fed by what he actually experiences in the East. In the following passage, his critical familiarity with nomad ways, his use of Arabic words, as though the reader too, is also hearing them in Southern Arabia, and his somewhat idiosyncratic vocabulary continue to create this world:

That we had to drink in the lava country is pool-water, black, thick and fetid. Commonly after

two or three camel waterings the pool is drawn to the dregs, and that water will sooner foul

than whiten linen; yet of this the nomads are fain to fill their girbies and be thankful: - there is

none other...in the menzils a man will carry out from the tent a bowl of water, and go to purify

himself in some secret place of the desert. TTie nomads might cleanse the pools (which now

they must needs abandon at half-water,) from the feculent lees of generations; they have wit

enough, but not public virtue for a common labour; and the sheykh's authority cannot compel

his free tribesmen. (Doughty, 1921. Vol. 1: 453)

All the writers under discussion have a lot to say about Arab attitudes towards water and reveal implicitly or explicitly that Western notions of hygiene are defeated. Doughty is no exception and as he stresses, a pool of water is a group possession, a reversal of normal English expectation and that a man seeking peace to purify himself would chose some other place. He criticizes the careless attitude of the Arab towards water: "The nomads might cleanse the pools", but they have "not public virtue for a common labour". His logic is majestic and the final sentence balances no less than three contrasting statements: the "water will foul sooner than whiten", "diey have wit enough but not public virtue" and "the sheykh's authority cannot compel his free tribesmen". His use of the modal verb "fain" is archaic, and he uses three Arabic words: "girbies", "menzils" and "sheykh" which would not be understood by his readers. They are defined in an Arabic glossary at the

This lines are from a well-known hymn "Lead us,heavenly father, lead us". Attributed to Lowell

Mason (1792-1872). The Australian Hymn Book. Melbourne: Collins. 1977. p. 615.

58

back of the book, so that readers are dependent on Doughty to supply a meaning for what he writes about. He himself was so frequently unpopular among the Arabs because he was of little practical assistance to them and consumed scarce resources. However, his portentious writing style gives him back some measure of self-respect, as he in turn becomes the guide for his readers.

Although writers on the Middle East meet the common charge that they are romantics. Doughty evidently is not. He is outraged by the behaviour of both the Nomad and the town Arab:

To speak of the Arabs at the worst, in one word, the mouth of the Arabs is full of cursing and lies and prayers; their heart is a deceitful labyrinth. W e have seen their urbanity; gall and venom is in their least ill-humour; disdainful, cruel, outrageous is their malediction. "Curse Ullah, thy father (that is better than thou), the father of the likes of thee!" (Doughty,1921. Vol. I: 309)

He has already analyzed their speech:

A few turns and ornaments of their speech, come suddenly to my remembrance; gently in contradiction, la! LJUah yesellimk, "Nay, the Lord give thee peace;" in correction, la! Ullah hadik... (Doughty, 1921. Vol. 1: 307)®

but not even that gains his approval. He comments that "The Arabian town-dwellers contemn this boisterous utterance of the sons of the wilderness". (Doughty, 1921. Vol. 1: 307) Neither has he anything to say in favour of Nomad women:

Hirfa, as a principal sheykh's daughter, was reputed to be seen in leechcraft. Hirfa one day calling her gossips together, they sat down before me to see my medicine-box opened. The silly bewildered hareem took my foreign drugs in their hands, one by one; and smelling to them, they wavered their heads with a wifely gravity. (Doughty, 1921. Vol. I: 297)

He offers no vision of the hard life of a desert woman because he does not understand it: women are not legitimate subjects of study. These adult children are allowed visibility only to provide local colour and to emphasize his Western superiority of knowledge and possessions. He is able to demonstrate superiority to a whole class of people, inferior though they may be. It soothes his wounded feelings, since he is often an object of embarrassment to the Arabs - a poor sort of man and a non-believer to boot. The Eastern setting merely confirms the prejudices which Doughty shared with many of his fellow Englishmen.

Professor A. Johns of the Australian National University said that "la! Ullah hadik" meant "May ^ God guide you". He added that the religious sentiments expressed both here and in Gertrude Bell's prose indicated that the people were unlettered. Another linguist offered "May God keep you healthy" as a translation of "Ullah yesellimk", and suggested that the spelling might be Turkish.

59

W i t h o u t benefit of masculine approbation, ( except that of her own father, who always

seems to have supported her interests) Gertrude Bell became both a traveller and a writer.

She writes a prose which is clear and ordered, with a swiftly flowing narrative, interwoven

with humour and personal reminiscence:

Our departure from Ba'albek was marked by a regrettable occurrence - my dog Kurt was found to have disappeared in the night...After a few minutes Habib reappeared with Kurt, all wag, behind him on a chain. He had found him, he explained breadilessly, in the house of one who had thought to steal him, fastened with this very chain:

"And when Kurt heard my voice he barked, and I went into the yard and saw him. And the lord of the chain demanded it of me, and by God! I refused to give it him and struck him to die earth with it instead. God curse him for a thievish Matawileh!"^

The contrast between Doughty, the aloof commentator and Bell, who was clearly part of the scene which

she enjoyed, is evident. In common with Doughty, Bell reveals her knowledge of Arabic ' and our

ignorance of it and paints a picture of the scene before her:

There is an Arabic proverb which says: "Hayyeh rubda wa la da if mudha" - neither ash-grey snake nor mid-day guest. We were careful not to make a breach in our manners by outstaying our welcome, and our camp was up before the sun. To wake in that desert dawn was like waking in the heart of an opal. The mists lifting their heads out of the hollows, the dews floating in ghostly wreaths from the black tents, were shot through first with the faint glories of the eastern sky and then with the strong yellow rays of the risen sun. (The Desert and the Sown: 64)

T h e passage displays Bell's awe and reverence for what she saw and experienced. She

places herself within her landscape and her participles award it a life of its own. In

c o m m o n with Doughty, vigorous language interested her, but in contrast , she was not

repelled - rather it fascinates her:

Namrud: "Upon thee! upon thee! oh boy! may thy dwelling be destroyed! may thy days come to harm!"

Beni Sakhr: "By the face of the Prophet of God! may He be exalted!"

Sherarat (in suppressed chorus): "God! and Muhammad the Prophet of God, upon Him be peace!"

A party in bare legs and a sheepskin: "Cold, cold! Wallah! rain and cold!"

Namrud: "Silence, oh brother! descend into the well and draw corn. It is warm there." (The Desert and the Sotwa: 41)

This is the emphatic prose of one who feels entirely at home with her subject - the Arab

people. Implicit is the notion that English society, polite or not, does not talk quite like

that and neither is life quite so rough. T h a t is what provides the interest: the place is

Gertrude Bell. The Desert and the Sown. Intro. Sarah Graham-Brown. London: Virago. 1985. p. 168. First published Heinemann. 1907

60

"other".

She reveals that the East is a dangerous place - but that she is fully competent to deal with

it:

We were jogging along between hummocks of thorn and scrub, Muhammad as usual singing, when suddenly he broke off at the end of a couplet and said:

"I see a horseman riding in haste."

I looked up and saw a man galloping towards us along the top of a ridge; he was followed closely by another and yet another, and all three disappeared as they dipped down from the high ground. In the desert every newcomer is an enemy till you know him to be a friend. Muhammad slipped a cartridge into his rifle, Hussein extracted his riding-stick from the barrel, where it commonly travelled, and I took a revolver out of my holster. This done, Muhammad galloped forward to the top of a mound; I followed, and we watched together the advance of the three who were rapidly diminishing the space that lay between us. *

This passage which its long, multi-clause sentences contrasts with the brief utterances of

the reported conversation, yet her prose is measured. She reveals that she is in control,

despite their apparent danger, because embedded in the description is a break in the

action, while she pauses to explain that Hussein's riding stick is in the place "where it

commonly travelled". It is paradoxical that only the conservative East offers her the

opportunity of behaving in this thoroughly "masculine" way. Women did not customarily

play an active role in Eastern affairs, even when held up at gun point, yet Bell frequently

did on her travels in the East. She is a curiosity and an anomaly to the Arabs.

T.E. Lawrence too, is a conqueror, despite his mythologised reputation. He illustrates a

common theme among the writers, which is how to remain in control of a situation:

Suddenly shots rang out at close range, and four mouthing men dashed down the slope towards us. I stopped my camel peaceably. Seeing this they jumped off, and ran to us brandishing their arms. They asked who I was: volunteering that they were Jazi Howeitat. This was an open lie, because their camel-brands were Faiz. They covered us with rifles at four yards, and told us to dismount. 1 laughed at them, which was good tactics with Beduin at a crisis. They were puzzled. I asked the loudest if he knew his name. He stared at me, thinking 1 was mad... ^

T.E. Lawrence gradually assumes die initiative as the action shifts from the two groups of

men who encounter each other to a showdown between "the loudest" and "I". The

narrative contains a central kernel of wisdom - it is his superior knowledge of local camel

brands which saves his Arab companions, as well as his quick wits. He is behaving in a

manner which is just as "Oriental" as that of Charles Doughty and Gertrude Bell:

10. Gertrude Bell. Amurath to Amurath. London: Macmillan. 1924. p. 137. First published, 1911. 11 T.E. Lawrence. A selection from "The Seven Pillars of Wisdom", in The Essential T.E. Lawrence.

Selected David Gamett. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 1956. p. 167-168. First published 1951.

61

"Oriental" because he is superior, and the men he encounters are the inferior lawbreakers who must be taught a lesson.

A second excerpt reveals how he uses travel "as a metaphor for inner experience" (Bishop,

1984: 156):

now I was nearly finished. Step by step I was yielding myself to a slow ache which conspired with my abating fever and the numb monotony of riding to close up the gate of my senses. I seemed at last approaching the insensibility which had always been beyond my reach: but a delectable land for one bom so slug-tissued that nothing this side fainting would let his spirit free. Now I found myself dividing into parts. There was one which went on riding wisely, sparing or helping every pace of the wearied camel. Another hovering above and to the right bent down curiously, and asked what the flesh was doing. The flesh gave no answer, for, indeed, it was conscious only of a ruling impulse to keep on and on; but a third garrulous one talked and wondered, critical of the body's self-inflicted labour, and contemptuous of the reason for effort. (Lawrence, 1956. p. 169)

He is an anti-hero in a mythic landscape, since he views himself as "slug-tissued". His

antipathy for self causes a desire for self-immolation: to unite with a landscape which he

describes as "delectable". TTie fragmentation of personality into three selves is a foretaste

of the contempt he was to continue to express for the flesh in later life.^^ His writing

offers the most intense and intimate view of his inner self. The Orient does not really

feature, and when he concentrates upon the landscape, something similarly odd happens:

From the ridge at sunset we looked back for an instant upon the northern plain, as it sank away from us greyly, save that here and there glowed specks or great splashes of crimson fire, the reflection of the dying sun in shallow pools of rain-water on the flats. These eyes of a dripping bloody redness were so much more visible than the plain that they carried our sight miles into the haze, and seemed to hang detached in the distant sky, tilted up, like mirage. (Lawrence, 1956. p. 168)

He becomes part of his landscape in a very different manner to Gertrude Bell. The setting

sun's reflection is mirrored in puddles, with "eyes of a dripping bloody redness" and he

seems to be caught up in a mystic experience. Robert Graves is critical, saying that the

influence of Doughty was responsible for "his furious keying-up of style in The Seven

Pillars." (Graves: 244) However, the effect is singular, and as Peter Bishop observes:

"TTie travel account creates an imagined landscape filled with subjective meanings, in

which even descriptions of the weather can provide precise impressions of mood,"^^ and

Paul Eggert's discussion of the "evocation of the subconscious" in the "remembered

impression" of crucifixes which D.H. Lawrence found upon his travels, indicates nicely

the manner in which even artifacts in landscapes can be remoulded to suit private

See comments made about his subsequent life in the R.A.F, in Lawrence, 1956. p. 259. 13. Bishop. 1984. p. 156. l" . Paul Eggert. "D.H. Lawrence and the Crucifixes". Bulletin of Research in the Humanities. Vol. 86.

1983. 67-85. p. 73-4.

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purposes. Finally, as with D.H. Lawrence's crucifixes, it is difficult to say whether the subject of the passage here is the desert, or T.E. Lawrence's state of mind.

Stark does things differently and the East lives for others in her writing, as well as for herself. Her Arab women are quite different from Doughty's silly hens. They are sensible and capable, even if just as woefully deficient in sensibility towards herself in illness as her mother had been. She describes the village elder's sisters:

The Mansab's two handsome sisters, Rahiya and Fatima, have also called.

These sayyid ladies come in the evening, when the streets are dark and empty so that - even veiled as they are and covered in sheet-like white - they may not be seen. Qasim lets them in, and then clears the kitchen and even the street for them when they leave. "In the day-time," says Fatima, "there are men about," in a voice in which one might talk of a plague of locusts.

"How happy you are unmarried," she told me. "Allah alone is above you." (Winter in Arabia: 77)

Stark appears amused when presenting the Arabic attitude towards women's appearance in public, even if it is evident that she did not entirely share it. She lets the women speak for themselves. Her little asides are kindly, and also serve as a small subversive commentary. She empathizes with the women's praise for her spinsterhood, though more commonly they share the Western attitude of pity. Stark uses the Oriental viewpoint to validate her own subversive longings to be accepted despite her unmarried state.

As has been illustrated in the first three writers under discussion. Oriental landscapes traditionally offer dangers. Stark is more indirect in her illustration when she describes a plane flight from Aden to Mukalla in Saudi Arabia, in 1937, which she made with Gertrude Caton Thompson and Elinor Gardner. She reveals the dangers obliquely: "Sharks far down were dimly visible...on our left the gaunt, leopard-coloured lands..." {Winter in Arabia: 3) and continues with a careful geographic description, redolent with romantic references:

Here somewhere the frankincense road, the Arabian highway, came to the sea and found a crater-built harbour where the volcanic headlands lie, since there is no other commodity for shipping along the shallow strips of shore. We look down eagerly, for we mean later to investigate these inlets. Bal Haf is there, three small square towers on an infinitesimal, hook-like bay facing west. The lava-ridge runs in snouts beyond it; an empty crater, round and perfect, stands like a buttress and forms another inlet. 1 marvel to see no trace of ruins here, and only find out the reason months later, as 1 ride along the coast: there is no water. {Winter in Arabia: 4)

"We mean later to investigate these outlets", reveals Stark, whose central message is contained in the heart of the final passage quoted. It is a quirk of style which she shares with Bell, and perhaps Lawrence. The subject is the landscape, and humans are reduced to helpless specks who "quiver over the bay of the Fish-eaters". (Winter in Arabia: 4)

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Frankincense, known only by repute or biblical reference in the West, is a mysterious, romantic, but still common commodity in the Orient. Adventure is implicit in the description. However, for all the suggestion that they are in danger. Stark has conquered it by flying over it. Only later does she approach it in vulnerable Oriental style, on foot.

Gertrude Caton Thompson (1888- ) refers to the same air journey in her autobiography. Mixed MemoirsA^ Her style is factual and adjectives are selected for their literal descriptive power. She provides precise information on the organization of the expedition and says nothing of feelings. This is a scientific report of an expedition, not a romantic journey. Her style emphasizes more than anything else can do, the temperamental differences as well as differences of interest between Thompson and the other writers:

In the Besse plane, a four-seater with an English pilot, we flew the 630 miles to Mukalla, or rather to Fura, its landing ground on the coastal plain some 15 miles away. There a car met us and we ran along the sandy beach in about 45 minutes.

The air-route, flying at about 5(X)0 ft, followed the east-west line of the great South Arabian Escarpment, its sheer cliffs of Eocene limestone over sandstone broken near Fura by a volcanic eruption with granite and black extinct volcanoes. (Mixed Memoirs: 181)

The landscape is fixed by numbers - by time, by chronological distance, by heights. Caton Thompson is an archaeologist, with an interest in landscape which is strictly limited. She did not enjoy travel, or go the East for its own sake. She has mastered the scenery with her technical classification of its features. We could be reading a geology textbook, rather than her memoirs. She is not a stylist. If she has read Doughty or Bell or Lawrence, then it would be for the facts they present. Although she uses a metaphor "TTie car met us", it is a colourless perfunctory one, quickly dispensed with when she adds: "we ran along the sandy beach in about 45 minutes." We could use her as a reliable guide to topography, should we choose to repeat her journey, in contrast to Freya Stark, whose descriptions of her route in the N.W. Persian mountains mystified even other explorers of the same area. Caton Thompson has no truck with the imaginary. Mary Louise Pratt describes the style of this kind of writing as "the monarch-of-all-I-survey", (Pratt: 201) adding that promontory descriptions were common in Romantic and Victorian writing. TTie discovery was a passive experience and the journey did not become real until the traveller returned to report or record his experiences "officially", whether to the Royal Geographic Society, the London Mission Society or in the form of writing of a travel book. (Pratt: 202-204)

15. Gertrude Caton Thompson. Mixed Memoirs. Gateshead: Paradym. 1983.

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There is an element of "the monarch-of-all-I-survey" about Thompson's flight, far above the landscape. She disdains the creation of mythic landscape as discussed by Peter Bishop: rather she categorizes it and its inhabitants for us. Now, any Englishman can look at it in exactly the same colourless manner. She is ultimately more damaging of the landscape than the other writers, who incidentally confirmed Bishop's thesis that:

These other landscapes did provide in varying ways an inverse perspective on the West, a form of critique of the industrial civilization of which the travellers and the readers were part. Byron on Tibet, Waugh on Abyssinia and Brazil, Lawrence on Australia and Mexico, Greene on Mexico, all critically reflect on the values of the West, and are in their accounts of their travels concerned with the future of a materialistic and alienating Western culture. (Bishop: 156)

But why not? The other writers were after all comparing the two kinds of experience about which they knew. Despite their divergencies of style, T.E. Lawrence, Bell and Stark agree on a number of issues - the East is beautiful, even when squalid; the people are more lively, even though more venal, life is more piquant, when death and disease are nearer to hand. TTie adoption of a different persona is evident in these three writers, all of whom assumed a role of leadership - a role customarily denied to women in the West (or indeed in the East, but that is another problem). It also highlights Stark's descriptive powers, for which the Royal Geographical Society awarded her its highest honours.

Each writer adopts a slightly different stance in the passages offered here. Gertrude Caton Thompson's is the least complex - she does not notice the Arabs: she has a job of work to perform as efficiently as possible. Gertrude Bell enjoys them, and makes a comedy of their errors (though in superior fashion). Charles Doughty criticizes them and the way they misuse their language. T.E. Lawrence broods over an inner landscape, upon which the Arabs impinge only incidentally, allowing him to play the role of hero. Freya Stark dreams and plots landscape and routes against an Arab backdrop which is often domestic and sometimes romantic but always carefully observed. What they are doing in the East is enjoying a personal freedom denied them by their own society: no matter that the "cost" is considerable. Western society has long sanctioned the act of travel. The reasons for departure have not traditionally greatly troubled that society. There can be no one definition of Orientalism which will cover all cases.

The next two chapters continue with an examination of Stark's attitude towards the East. It was not static: it changed over time.

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CHAPTER 4

FREYA STARK'S FIRST RESPONSE TO THE EAST

This chapter examines in greater detail Stark's transition from a naive and wide-eyed newcomer, to a woman who could speak with authority based on close acquaintance with Eastern ways.

Her first response in Letters from Syria (1928) reveals that it was a painful learning experience for someone who was no longer young. The letters "describe that 'first fine careless rapture,' the opening of the East to eyes that had never left Europe."^ (Letters from Syria: ix) She had prepared herself by reading Charles Doughty's book and had started learning Arabic as far back as 1921. She depicts the scene in a letter from Tripoli, whilst she is on her journey to Syria in 1927:

The men too, loading and unloading, with their baggy trousers and red tasselled tarbooshes, looking just like Sinbad the Sailor as I met him in the picture-book on my ninth birthday. Herbert gave him to me and is probably responsible for my being here. (Letters from Syria: 22)

She singles out the old-fashioned air, and thinks of a well-known Eastern story which she has known since childhood. She is reliving childhood experiences. She finds what she interprets as Eastern indifference to hygiene endearing:

I [was] very busy trying to eat an orange presented by the boatman, and after one prudish Western qualm, flinging the peel into the middle of the street with true Oriental spirit. (Letters from Syria: 20)

Stark wonders why she is responding so eagerly to the East, and says: "1 have come to the conclusion that it is the...genuinely wild." (Letters from Syria: 30) She stayed in Brumana, a Syrian village on the slopes of the Lebanon, high above Beirut, where she was not entirely favourably received by the Westernized "local-born" and the expatriate community. With their previous experience of Englishwomen as missionaries, her dancing and walking with young men apparently elicits surprised comment. (Letters from Syria: 77) The Quaker missionaries, to whom she had introductions, and with whom she associated, objected to her consorting "with Mohammedans, and this has caused a slight coolness." (Letters from Syria: 107) She read love poems with Salehmy, her language tutor and enjoyed conversation and walks with Mr Edmunds, the mathematics teacher at the mission school. The missionaries were greatly shocked when it was revealed that Mr

Freya Stark. Letters from Syria. London: John Murray. 1942. p. ix.

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Edmunds had stayed in her lodgings on a trip to Damascus. They all danced, even Mr. Chamoun, the Syrian headmaster. The doctor, Dr Manasseh, also an educationist, drove her around. Stark criticizes colonial structures, and says, most ungratefully, of the Quaker Mission School in Brumana:

I don't believe they are in any real touch with the people here...It is extraordinary to see how little they manage to share the life of the place...The Syrians are charmed to find that anyone is genuinely interested in their language and them. {Letters from Syria: 43-44)

However, Stark herself was not totally immersed in die local community either: "I long

for a letter from you", she concludes a letter to Venetia Buddicom, (Letters from Syria: 25)

and she uses binoculars to look down from her village to xht harbour far below, to check

for likely ships bringing letters to her from her father. Ever mindful of acceptance by the

English ruling classes, she acquires introductions to Government House people in

Jerusalem.

She found the "local bom" community a relief after the missionaries, but her primary need

was for hospitality, regardless of the ethnic group of her friends. Her views on Nomads are

rather disheartening, to say the least - she merely sees them as offering uncomfortable

living conditions:

I have an introduction (so to speak) for some of the tame Beduins, but am still in hopes that the more comfortable palace lof the Prime Minister of Baghdad, Ja'far Pasha, who had resigned] may be available." (Letters from Syria: 38)

Her development as an oriental spokesman was patchy, but since she was relatively poor,

and she was interested in the countryside, she mixed with a rather different set of people

from most local or visiting Europeans. She was much more involved in local politics,

because they offered the potential to disrupt her travel plans. She relied upon local

knowledge to arrange a walk in Syria with her friend Venetia Buddicom, at a time when

Syria was a rather insecure French mandate. She felt entirely equal to this: "TTie essential

is a good Druse guide, [a Christian sect] so as not to be drawn into religious troubles. I

shall be able to get one through the Syrian doctor", she wrote. (Letters from Syria: 28)

Local knowledge could not have been very good, since the two women discovered that

the area in which they were walking was under martial law. Stark was unusual among the

travelling English because she did not want to see the East through English eyes:

It breaks my heart to think you will see Damascus before we walk in with our mules...Don't, don't linger in Damascus. You will see it from a horrid European hotel and it will be all wrong. (Letters from Syria: 43)

Stark lived to regret her words bitterly when she experienced the reality of East

conditions. She travelled alone to Damascus before the walk, where she ignored

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European accommodat ion in favour of a native household in the Moslem quarter of

Damascus. (It was also cheaper.) She was quite horrified by her experiences, and wrote

to her mother:

Imagine one of those little backyards in Venice as the entrance to my home. You climb up rather rickety stairs, through the lower litter of garments, saucepans, old shoes, and flower-pots to a pleasant room with seven windows; where, unless you are extremely carefiil, everyone can see you while you dress. 1 really think the bed is all right: I didn't at first, but have come to the conclusion it is only the greyness of home washing. I have found nothing alive anyway: in fact what I complain of is that everything smells as if it were dead"...Madame seems to dress in the eating-room and we had to hunt for our food among her toilet things; all die debris was thrown into a hole in the floor close by where the milk is standing. W e sit round the primus stove beside the washing-up bucket, and I tried to anchor my mind on the fact that nothing much besides old age can happen to the inside of a boiled egg. (Letters from Syria: 88-89)

She manages to retain an attitude of amused irony as she depicts her feelings as they

slowly respond to the conditions surrounding her. In her comments on the bed linen,

where she concludes that it "is only the greyness of home washing. I have found nothing

alive anyway", there is a slight, playful pause before the reader discovers that "all right"

really does mean "vermin free", as well as that the sheets are freshly washed, though grey.

TTie lesson she is learning painfully is that the East puts a different interpretation upon

appearance. She is tentat ive about accepting Eastern ways because they contradict

Western ideas on hygiene and manners. She gropes uncomfortably with the discovery.

T h e rest of the description confirms the wretched conditions. The family's activities, as

they "hunt for their food among [Madame's] toilet things, and "sit round the primus stove

beside the washing-up bucket" gives a feeling of immediacy. The deadpan anticlimax of:

"what I complain of is that everything smells as if it were dead", nicely balances the

consoling humour of her conclusion that: "nothing much besides old age can happen to

the inside of a boiled egg". Nevertheless, her views do present a particular atti tude

towards the East, in which superiority is laced with humour - and with no little

exaggeration. Stark saw herself as superior to people who did not know how to order a

household correctly. She had almost mastered this kind of European insularity when she

reached die unadulterated East of die Bedouin tents, but it was never very far away.

Despite her sprightly tone as she details the disgusting conditions she must endure, and

her success in overcoming her own squeamishness, she later reports: "1 have been feeling a

little depressed". (Letters from Syria: 90) She often was, even in the East. She was lonely

and clung tenaciously to her European "contacts", though dissatisfied with their attitude

towards the East: The Vice-Consul, she complains, has no useful local knowledge (Letters

from Syria: 90) but she evidently managed well without him, since:

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I have been introduced to a delightful Moslem Sheikh who will shew me Damascus free from tourists. He is part owner of the most beautiful house in the city and belongs to an old family of Albanian Turks. (Letters from Syria: 91)

What she found in Damascus illustrates the English version of the Orient:

to-day I found my way into die Arabian Nights,and it was very lifelike: sitting on the ledges of the little open shops and buying silks which the merchant in his long gown spreads out before me...My Sheikh took me about this afternoon, looking so well in his flowing gold and brown cloak diat comes from Ibn Saud and the desert. (Letters from Syria: 95-96)

This vision of The Arabian Nights meant something to Stark's English readers. Western travellers reported no more than what diey witnessed before thier eyes. Equally, travellers were not interested in hunting out evidence of Western-style progress, should they be able to find any. Stark singled out such progress for unfavourable comment, concluding that what was so badly done was better not attempted. She wanted the "unadulterated East" and she was predictably dazzled by "my Sheikh", though noticeably Imperialistic, since she takes

possession of him with these words. In the same patronizing manner, she attempts to adopt an Oriental

viewpoint after meeting a former governor:

These well-bred Moslems are very agreeable, and just as easy to get on with as well-bred people the world over. Of course, one cannot become intimate unless one knows enough of their civilization to be able to see from their angle...I don't believe there is any more fundamental reason why one should not know a Syrian as intimately as anyone else who is not of one's own race. Another cause for misunderstanding is that the foreigner usually meets the lower classes here. (Letters from Syria: 104)

She achieves a mixed success while grappling with the very real social problems of a visitor from another land. In a discussion on the rival merits of Islam and Christianity, she reveals only her ignorance, and succeeds in seeing things only from her own point of view:

I have long thought of Mohammedanism as one form of Protestantism and far nearer to the spirit of Protestantism than the debased forms of Christianity here...he seemed rather to like the idea. (Letters from Syria: 104)

Her interpretation of his reaction is improbable. She continues:

He is convinced that the Koran is superior to the Bible, just as he is convinced that Arabic poetry is superior to the literatures of Europe. This is all interesting in someone who has been in the hands of the missionaries for the whole of his education. In fact I can't help feeling that my casual conversations are doing more for making an atmosphere of understanding than all their efforts put together. (Letters from Syria: 104-105)

Stark's words reveal that she knew nothing about Moslem beliefs, or about classical Arabic literature. Malise Ruthven comments: "she read the Quran, but never developed much of an interest in, or any great knowledge of, Islamic theology". (Ruthven: 141)

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The Orient is dangerous in popular mythology for unprotected European women. Stark's own attitude was more difficult to pin down, but she believed (or pretended to believe) herself to be threatened in Damascus:

I had an adventure which...gave me a nasty qualm. I fell into it because it was like the Arabian Nights. An old man with a venerable beard came up as I was strolling along with my camera and said just as anyone would expect: "Follow me, oh lady, and I will show you a beautiflii place. So 1 followed...and turned down a very narrow dark passage which went below the level of the street. 1 did hesitate, but he said "Have no fear," and it is not so easy as it seems to change one's course when once started. We came to a heavy studded door, on which he knocked: ten centuries dropped from me by magic: 1 should not have been at all surprised to see the Caliph and his two companions on the other side! The door was opened from the inside, and there was a great vaulted hall, lighted from a window in the roof, and with a cistern of flowing water in the centre. There were alcoves widi carpets on a raised platform round three sides, and various men lying about on them with dieir heads wrapped in turbans and nothing much except their big bath wraps on. I did feel I was not in a suitable place! They gathered round me in an instant. Then I heard the door clank to behind me with a horrid sound as if a chain were dropped. (Letters from Syria: 101-102)

Stylistically, Stark presents a story within a story. It is framed in the same manner of A Thousand and One Nights, which she had certainly read. Stark casts herself as heroine and so is in control, despite her apparently compromising situation in a male bath house. She seems to think, as she did on many occasions of confrontation between herself and the East, that it is her knowledge of Arabic, and readiness of wit which saves her - and perhaps it does:

I put my back against the wall so as to face them. I said to the old man: "Oh my father, wilt thou hold my gloves while I take the picture.'"...They had all come up so close to me and I thought them a villainous-looking crowd. Someone murmured to the old man: "French?" "English," said I hastily: "we are your people's friends." This had an extraordinarily soothing effect on the atmosphere. (Letters from Syria: 102)

Stark uses her Eastern setting to imply menace. In fact, the door was not actually locked

behind her: it was only "as if a chain had dropped". Was she writing a story to entertain

her mother or did the moment in the male bath house, whether actually true or not,

represent a significant moment for her - a "moment in the rose garden" as T.S. Eliot

would term it? It possesses the significant elements of such a moment - an

unaccompanied female who is enticed by an elderly bearded stranger, a lonely vaulted hall

entered along long narrow passages, an atmosphere suffused with sexuality. She is

apparently menaced by nearly naked men, locked doors, and all the paraphernalia of the

romantic East, the whole introduced by a reference to The Arabian Nights.

There is a slight hint that it is more than play-acting. In rhe same letter she reveals that

she has found great peace: "My Sheikh has taken me over the Great Mosque - a

wonderful, beautiful place to pray in...I should like to spend hours there; and the Sheikh

says no one would trouble me if I did so." {Letters from Syria: 103)

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Other explorers, like T.E. Lawrence and the French Orientalist, Louis Massignon, have

recorded their significant moments, which could only have taken place in the East, and

which they believed had changed die whole course of their lives. It may be that Stark

saw her adventure as in some way confirming her allegiance to die East. It also indicates

that Stark was not as irreligious as her biographers and she herself sometimes implies,

which is a point which was raised earlier in Chapter 2.

The veracity of both Lawrence's account and diat of Louis Massignon have been called into question, although the significance to them of the incidents has been accepted. Albert Hourani analyzes these incidents and concludes that:

For both Massignon and Lawrence, too, the Arab East was also the place where they experienced something so deep and challenging as to have revealed their true selves and the orientation of their lives. For Lawrence...The symbolic moment was that day in November 1917 at Deraa when, according to his own account, he was imprisoned, beaten and abused by Turks, and 'the citadel of my integrity had been irrevocably lost'...Massignon...according to his own account, many times repeated...had been accused of being a spy while on an archaeological expedition in Iraq, held under constraint and threatened with execution. He had tried to commit suicide 'by the sacred horror of myself, lost consciousness, then suddenly awoke to be aware of the presence of a Stranger 'who took me just as I was...'^

In common with Lawrence and Massignon, Stark was lonely and ill before her

experiences in the bath house and in the Great Mosque. Only Letters from Syria prints

this particular letter, and we have Sir Sydney Cockerell, her early mentor, who made the

selection, to thank for its inclusion in Letters from Syria. It may be that I am making too

much of the incident.

For her first journey in the wild in May, 1928, Stark elected to travel for twelve days in

the Jebel Druse, following an inland route from Baalbek to Damascus, and from Damascus

to Jerusalem. The area was highly unsettled. The Druse, who were one of about six

Christian groups in the area, had been in revolt from August, 1925'March, 1927 and the

French rulers of Syria still did not welcome intruders. The two women planned a self-

sufficient expedition lead by a Druse, with his small nephew and three donkeys. They

were lightly armed with a letter of introduction and without permits, which would not

have been granted anyway, since the locals were shooting at each other and passing

strangers. (Letters from Syria: 128)

Stark has an unconcealed dislike of the dirt, disease and the crowds which she encounters

on her Syrian walk. Whilst she enjoyed the hospitality of villagers, she is unmistakably a

Albert Hourani. Islam in European Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1991. p. 119-120.

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visiting European: "We are never alone when in a village", (Letters from Syria: 134) she

bewails, her italics revealing her agitation. Stark was later to criticize strongly those

Europeans who expected to encounter solitude in the East. It is evidence diat Stark's

attitude did change with her exposure to Eastern ways.

Whilst travelling with Buddicom, she met die chief Moslem from the village of Deir Ali and to her credit, accepted with equanimity Eastern disregard of Western scientific knowledge in the face of an inscrutable Allah:

He alone smoked a hubble-bubble; the others took our cigarettes, while we all discussed the harmfulness of smoking in general. The genuine oriental view came from our host, who looked up from where he was crouching over the fire to say that it is God and not the tobacco who sends the diseases; so that I suppose it makes no odds how many bad things you indulge in. (Letters from Syria: 135)

She favoured the simplicity of the locals against those who were European-educated and

so saw themselves as superior: "How one loathes these products of European education

when one sees them next to the genuine article of the country!" she wrote, (Letters from

Syria: 145) when her Druse guide was criticized.

For one who made her name as a supporter of the Muslim Arabs, Stark was surprisingly

cool in her early contacts, and she thought their manner towards women, including (for

perhaps the last time) herself, equally bad:

It is the stranger host's duty to put himself about for his guests, and our twelve days have taught us to take this for granted. But after the respect and friendliness of the Druses, we felt our female inferiority rather acutely among the Moslems, for we sat with the women on the far side of the coffee hearth and the men came dropping in, heavily bearded and fierce to look at, and never spoke to us; and when the coffee was ready they all drank first, and then sent only the little son of the house in his long blue gown and bare feet to carry us the cups. (Letters from Syria: 182-3)

It is not difficult to see why Stark later insisted on becoming an "honorary male". Stark

arguably owes her subsequent career in the East to her dislike of coffee dregs. It was but a

short step from acceptance of honorary male status to her subsequent declarations that

women were inferior to men. It met with gratif/ing rewards and allowed her to travel

comfortably: by this method, she achieved more than she even dared diink about in

England. There is always a lot of self-interest in Stark's attitude towards Eastern ways,

which rather muddies die question of her conception of Orientalism.

Slowly, Stark's awareness and appreciation of the East was forged, at first in semi-

European society and later when she travelled among the ordinary people, widi whom she

was able to sympathize more readily than most Europeans, because of the twin motivating

factors of her curiosity and her own comparative poverty. Stark and Buddicom inevitably

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came to the attention of the authorities, but were gallantly received by bored French functionaries. (Letters from Syria: 160) Following her stance with the Missionaries, and despite their kindness towards the two interlopers. Stark was ungratefully critical of the Frenchmen for interfering in the internal politics of Syria:

It was pleasant to get away into freedom again...! believe there is not a Frenchman in the country who intends these people ever to govern themselves. It is their bad manners that annoy me so. They talk of diem and to diem as if they were scarce to be considered as human beings. (Letters from Syria: 161)

It is surprising how often Stark directly criticizes foreign intervention in the affairs of the Arab lands she visited, widiout ever formulating any dieories about the wrongness of any colonial presence. She never questioned her own right to be there either.

Addressing this problem, Susan L. Blake places Imperialism, and hence Orientalism, in the same category as the problems Western women themselves faced within their own societies. Women like Stark sanctioned Western presence in countries under Imperial domination. However, they were able to see contradictions in the belief that Imperial government was for the good of the local populace when they reported on what they themselves actually saw about local affairs. Blake comments: "Most Victorian and early twentieth-century women narrators...mix endorsements of empire and accounts of personal experience that undercut it."^

W e see Stark doing this on numerous occasions. She has already criticized French influence in Syria. Elsewhere she commented unfavourably on Italian colonial ambitions in the area, though with a confusing mixture of Eastern and Western vision:

I don't believe there is even one Syrian who desires it, and it is rather too bad to see the Powers at work bandying people about in this unprincipled way. If Italy gets it, it will not be long before she is sorry! It is a poor country and will never give much return, and I should think as difficult to govern as any country in the world. (Letters from Syria: 42)

She was not working for the British government and had no official line to propagate.

However, her views on the East were more complex than she implied. What is less

certain, even in her Syrian days, is whether she would have held the views she did, had

Britain and not France, been the colonizer of Syria. Similarly Italian colonial ambitions

clashed with British ones, and that often seemed to be her principal objection. Allied

with a vague dislike of colonialism was the comforting thought that it was easier for the

English to travel in colonized territory.

3. Susan L. Blake. "A Woman's Trek What Difference Does Gender Make? 19-34. p. 20, in Napar Chaudhuri and Margaret Strobel. Eds. Western Women and Imperialism: Complicity and Resistance. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. 1992.

73

Stark travelled with a full complement of preconceptions, but her "moment" was a time of initiation. Because she had an acute awareness of what the East had to offer to the alert traveller, she had the wit and indeed the will to move from the known to the unknown. What is outstanding is her ability to perceive and analyze the pretensions of the French, the missionaries, the British wives in Baghdad, and the expatriates whom she met in the East. Her lack of understanding of Islam is evident, as were her insular prejudices when things were done differently in the East by the middle classes, for whom her sympathies were often scant. It is evident from her later books that she learned to appreciate Arabs more on their own terms than she did in this book, but her outlook was never truly empathic or entirely sympathetic. She is in advance of most other Europeans living in the area, either male or female. In fact, her "eyes" had already, to a noteworthy extent "left Europe".

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CHAPTER 5

FREYA STARK^S MORE MATURE RESPONSE TOWARDS THE EAST

Stark had acquitted herself well in Syria, for a novice, and settled in Baghdad, Iraq in October, 1929, where she wrote Baghdad Sketches (1932)1. The sketches were written for die Baghdad Times about Stark's life in die city, in 1931. They reveal her attitude towards the political aspirations of the educated young men of Iraq. It was a time when anti-British feeling was running high in Baghdad and she learned that the British point of view was not unassailable. However, we have already observed her distaste towards those Arabs who attempted to imitate Western attitudes and manners - an attempt which she felt was better not made than done badly. She continued to complain in Baghdad, saying that one of the women of the Shah's family: "has not combed her hair for the past week." (Beyond Euphrates: 215)

She spoke with a certain authority as a result of her first-hand acquaintance with the ordinary people, which started on the journey to Baghdad. Most English people used the prestigious Nairn buses, and dined and slept in comfort at Rutba, a desert resting point. Stark could not afford to do that, and so she shared a hire car with three locals, but she joined the English to eat and rest, and then ruminated on the effects of British separatism:

I think it is not really good manners to be more comfortable than my fellow-travellers; it is a sentiment which never gets put into practice, but I had felt apologetic about it when I went to dine. They would have been far from happy in that aloof British atmosphere: they like a sympathetic world where people talk to anyone at all times without being introduced: but one might feel excluded all the same, sitting there in the starlight while others sit at dinner; nationalisms, bolshevisms, all sorts of difficult plants, grow during such cold meditations: and how is one to prevent it? (Baghdad Sketches: 9)

There are three voices here - Stark's own, that imputed to the Imperialists and that

imputed to her fellow travellers. Stark managed to appear to side with the locals whilst

still enjoying the comfortable conditions provided for the Imperialists, though she did

have the grace to feel ashamed of it.

Weal th is equated with social distance, and demonstrates the power of economic Imperialism. This is confirmed when she went to live, though only very briefly and then by mistake, in an unhealdiy house in the Asmara quarter, and afterwards in the house of

1. Freya Stark. Baghdad Sketches. London: John Murray. 1937. First published Baghdad, 1932.

75

Michael the Shoemaker on the banks of the River Tigris. Her residence was humble, and

not many Europeans would choose to live like that. She selected it because she was too

poor to live anywhere better. It gave her a closer insight into local affairs, but created a

gulf between herself and the European wives, because they objected to her de-classing

herself. They may well have thought that her motives were suspect, since she had

inadvertently initially moved into the prostitutes' quarter. Stark retaliated by writing

about the British wives. She is famous for her comment:

T h e British appear to be popular wherever they go until they come to settle with their wives...It creates a barrier which was not there before they came.

If to this they add complete ignorance...there is no limit to the harm they can do. (Baehdad Sketches: 87)

Her words suggest, perhaps untruthfully, that British men lived in the local community

until they had to provide a home in the East for a wife and family. Gertrude Bell's

influence upon Stark is evident, since she had apparently uttered similar sentiments

before her: "When Colonel Dickson introduced his newly arrived bride, Gertrude did not

even shake hands but said 'It is such a pity you all marry and bring out incapable young

wives.'" (Letters III: 73)

Stark provides an example of how European women spoil the good relationships created

by their men-folk in the East. A Mrs X. visited her in her new home, and created a rift

because she did not behave sociably towards local male visitors:

What she did was to look straight before her as if the gentlemen on either hand had become suddenly invisible and disembodied. She looked at me and talked to me: they might have been sitting in the moon, and that is no doubt what they felt like, for the atmosphere was cold. (Baghdad Sketches: 89)

First one male visitor, and then the woman left:

W h e n I returned, Nasir fixed me with real malignity in his little placid eyes. "I knew she wanted me to go," he said. "I could see what she was thinking. They call us wogs." (Baghdad Sketches: 90)

Stark is behaving with rather transparent ill humour here. She had placed the woman in

an embarrassing situation, and must have known it. Arab women did not socialize with

men outside of the family circle, and European women did not generally expect to

associate with local men, especially in the absence of their husbands: d:iat Stark chose to

do so was her own affair. She wanted to flout convention and she wanted others to as

well, but she also wanted acceptance: she could not have both and she could only reveal

her annoyance by criticizing Mrs X: "She came prepared to be kind, in spite of the

difficulties of dealing with the social position of people who live in native houses,"

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(Baghdad Sketches: 88) remarked Stark, acidly, revealing the distance she herself has

moved since she wrote complaining to her mother about the squalor of her "native" home

in Damascus in 1929. It had not been an easy transition. Tha t she tried to live under

Eastern conditions at all was remarkable, though initiated largely through her ignorance

and dictated by her poverty.

Still concentrating on things from die point of view of an Oriental - a fairly new venture in Stark, she describes a young effendi:

Salim Beg is a restless young effendi, neatly dressed, very fiill of opinions which have not given h im much trouble to come by, and with manners whose off-handed curtness he has cultivated with care under the impression that this is the last thing in Western behaviour. (Baghdad Sketches: 1 4 3 )

Her tone is indulgent as she excused his bad manners:

I first came upon him in the house of a friend where he showed his objection to foreigners by sitting in sulky silence when put beside me and turning his back as soon as he could...if there must be such a feeling, the people who show it are preferable to those who don't...However, 1 greeted Salim Beg in a polite manner when next I saw him, and found to my surprise that he came up, still with his imitation of Western curtness, but with an amiable intention. (Baghdad Sketches: 1 4 3 - 4 )

Such behaviour would be unattractive in anyone, but Stark's argument is that if an Arab

were curt, it was only because he is imitating Englishmen. She has become the apologist

for local-born men. However, the transition in Stark, from political innocent to

spokesperson for the Eastern point of view, was not (and never became) complete.

Weakening her argument, she said that her Arabic tutor, Nasir Effendi, was equally anti-

British, because it was "the fashionable cry". (Baghdad Sketches: 45) He had, she said, no

real cause for complaint, "a few native articles in an opposite direction would have

turned him round in the inside of a month." (Baghdad Sketches: 45) Her views are not

fixed and in a sketch of the modern educated man. Stark describes the "Effendi",

patronizingly, as:

rather a pathetic figure, an idealist in his way...so terribly sensitive to other men's opinion.

He is a pioneer, launching a mechanical universe made in Europe on this ancient Eastern sea. (Baghdad Sketches: 1 5 1 )

Stark is captured at a turning point, as she oscillates between arguments which reflect the

British desire to remain in control in Iraq, and what she hears from her local informants,

with whom she is in often uneasy alliance. British presence was still much in evidence in

Baghdad and she carefully nurtured social ties with the leaders. She was greatly shocked

to hear that T.E. Lawrence was not as well thought of in the East as she had fondly

believed:

7 7

It was rather a sad shock the other day when mentioning Lawrence to hear my friend in Damascus talk of him as mal'un, 'accursed' and to hear that he passes now as one of the chief British spies, sent to betray the Arabs. Mrs. Drower diinks he did far more harm than good, and is very down on him, but it seems hard that the people he tried to help should also share this view. (Beyond Euphrates: 97)

In fact, T.E. Lawrence's reputation was jealously guarded by the Establishment. Even as late as 1955 when Richard Aldington maintained that:

the 'Prince of Mecca's daring exploits and military acumen were largely myths of his own making... [Aldington] aroused die anger of highly placed Home Office officials, apparently including die Prime Minister. Pressure was exerted on publishers, and most of Aldington's books were allowed to go out of print in Britain.^

Stark seems disinclined to accept Mrs Drower's point of view, though she was an Arabist,

and the wife of a legal adviser to the Government . We see Stark slowly absorbing

viewpoints on the oriental situation, but which were not pro-Arab to any appreciable

extent. She was pursuing a private agenda: which possibly included some amateur spying

herself, in N.W. Persia; and also a relationship with Captain Holt. Her attitude towards

the Arabs hardened as she met and associated with the British and Iraqi ruling classes.

Later, reviewer Peter Green was to draw attention to Stark's own shortcomings:

For so seasoned a traveller Miss Stark occasionally betrays curious insularity. Not once, but three times she lyricises over the arrangements of W.C.s, die joy of decently covered drains. "1 would love to see one Hadhrami child clean," she writes wistfully.^

Stark is credited with a ready sympathy with Arabs. Her reputation seems to be founded

on no particular evidence, except perhaps for a life-long outspoken anti-Semitism and

anti-Zionism: "we feel submerged by the chosen people", (Letters I: 199) which can

scarcely be considered to be adequate qualification. Following her response to the

missionaries in Brumana, she allied herself with those who, like herself, did not fit in with

British society.

Her doubtful social position caused a constriction in her vision. It made her unwilling to

abandon Imperialism and to become the champion of the Arab cause, although she was

aware that the two were mutually exclusive. She was in fact, a rather naive patriot.

However, her unique achievement was to learn Arabic, and to live in a certain intimacy

with the local community. It was that which gave her value in the eyes of the

Imperialists. It was something few women of education could claim to have done,

Richard Aldington & Lawrence Durrell. Literary Ufelines: The Richard Aldington-Uwrence Durrell Correspondence. Ed. Ian Niven & Harry Moore. London, Boston: Faber & Faber. 1981. (p. xiv) Peter Green "Desert Prose." "The Coast of Incense Autobiography 1933-1939". Freya Stark." The Spectator. Vol. 191. 1953.516,518.

78

however briefly or indeed would have wished to do. It is possible that it was her willingness and capacity to go about more unobtrusively than her British male counterparts which brought her to the attention of the British Government. She may never even have suspected the government's true interest in her: an awareness that women were not much thought of in the East, even English ones, unless they made a point of establishing their presence. A few medals established her credentials as an explorer - and Freya Stark might go anywhere in die East without attracting too much official attention.

Stark developed the theme in Baghdad Sketches that British women had sabotaged the

good relationships forged by their menfolk. She had sought to justify her own social

position in this manner, but her free ways failed to convince. In A Winter in Arabia (1940), she develops the argument more fully. Sir Kinahan Cornwallis, one-time

Minister of the Interior in Iraq, who worked in Political Intelligence in 1939, and with

whom she communicated on the Yemen situation, (Dust in the Lion's Paw: 19) attributed

her success in travelling to her tact in dealing with local inhabitants in volatile areas:

"The value of personal contacts and friendships has been proved over and over again in

the Middle East, and the evil effects of aloofness and indifference are clear for all to see."

(Winter in Arabia: 2)

TTie need to be accessible placed a considerable demand upon the patience and resources

of the traveller, as Stark often commented herself, whilst chiding her two companions on

her trip to the Hadhramaut (1937-1938), Gertrude Caton Thompson and Elinor

Thompson, for ducking their social responsibilities: "in the evening 1 would take one or

the other of my companions, plaintive because they 'did not like parties,' to the harims I

knew, to meet again the sayyid's lovely wife, and the singers..." (Winter in Arabia: 26) Being sociable was hard work, as Stark herself knew to her cost. The Hadhrami were

understandably reluctant to forgo the prospect of the first real entertainment they may

ever have experienced:

as for tents, there is no place here where in fifteen minutes they would not be crowded to overflowing. Nor can one shoo these people away and still be welcome among them; the very comer-stone of their democracy is a general accessibility. Officials who visit here know this and act upon it, and how should we - unofficial guests on a new venture - not bow to the customs of the land?...We cannot indulge diat theoretic benevolence toward natives that takes no personal trouble and stands no wear of contact. {Winter in Arabia: 29-30)

Conditions contrasted sharply with those in Egypt where Caton Thompson had worked

previously, and where the local people were kept at a distance from her archaeological

digs. Stark's basic premise, that the people of Southern Arabia should be treated

courteously and on their own terms, was sound, and even novel amongst some of her

79

compatriots.

Stark revelled in the sense of importance local curiosity invoked. On a pilgrimage to a local shrine she reported: "I showed myself like royalty from the terrace, and was greeted with cheers or their Arabian equivalent by the mass of people which now stretched almost out of sight below." {Winter in Arabia: 60) Her justification was that "one would like to add some small arch to the bridge of understanding between East and West". (Winter in Arabia: 130) She had clear ideas on what constituted the virtues of a traveller. They included "the capacity to accept values and to judge by standards other than our own...A knowledge of the local history and language...a ready quickness in repartee..." {Winter in Arabia: 51) Her rapport with a diverse collection of people is incredible. It makes her descriptions unique:

The most amusing people come to my lower room. I have made friends with the mercenaries who garrison the square watch-tower of the jol...When they are not on duty - and they very rarely are - they lounge with a gay Renaissance air...

hardly a day has passed without a visit from one or other of these rather disreputable acquaintances whom Qasim disapproves of. They are handsome and fearless, and give a great deal of trouble. {Winter in Arabia: 41)

Friendliness had practical results: thieving was reduced when people had been entertained as guests in the household and Stark felt that Europeans should give, as well as receive in relationships. They ought not to come merely to plunder because such a way of behaviour damaged East-West relationships. She was also extremely astute: the religious ruler of the area told Stark that he had given them only four of the eight workers requested to help at the archaeological dig, because he thought that four were quite sufficient for a party of women:

Amused by this attitude towards female emancipation, I agreed with the Mansab's prudence, but suggested that the ratio might now be raised. The giving of labour would increase his prestige with the tribes around...

Female emancipation as a means of propaganda became comprehensible in his eyes and we parted friends. {Winter in Arabia: 67)

She had raised the status of the women at the dig, whilst appearing to raise that of the Mansab. Meanwhile, Caton Thompson was busy lowering that of Stark. She:

has established Qasim's kitchen in the W.C. just by my bedroom...Qasim showed me over it in an embarrassed way and finally asked if I thought it nice to cook meals in a W.C? {Winter in Arabia: 68)

The accusation from Stark need not be taken at face value. She was free with trudi when people had, she felt, offended her, and Caton Thompson had. She used the situation to

80

demonstrate that their activities and status were judged by the locals, according to dieir own standards:

Qasim and the scientists are equally shocked by each other. One is always coming upon these mutual and identical criticisms from East and West...I am...so annoyed diat I can scarcely indulge the harmless pleasure of picturing to myself rhe surprise to European feeling if Qasim's uncivilized opinions on Western sanitation were disclosed. {Winter in Arabia: 69)

Apart from the question of keeping up appearances, Stark was continually embroiled in the problems of the workers. A certain foreman, Sayyid 'Ali, constantly cheated die workers and should have been dismissed. Stark reveals that inaction is in fact sometimes the better policy, and that the man was indispensable for other reasons, being "our only go-between widi the tribes". (Winter in Arabia: 70) This was important to Stark whose proposed solitary journey to the coast by a dangerous route at the conclusion of the expedition would be a perilous venture.

She revealed how the need to bandage an ankle could conflict with the Moslem religion, which required feet to be washed before the five-times daily prayers. The men were too unsophisticated to take advantage of dispensation from this, so making a minor wound into a major one. Stark does not criticize their stance, she merely reports it.

Caton TTiompson was supposed to have inadvertently caused a stir. Impatient with clumsy work people, she occasionally pushed them aside before they could damage objects which were dug up: "There is your social push of comradely eagerness, which no one minds, and there is your gesture of aloofness with its unconscious racial innuendo which the Arab visibly dislikes", declared Stark. {Winter in Arabia: 75) Accused of a personal vendetta against her companion, she later said to Sir Sydney Cockerell: "1 have done my horrid old book and it really is so softened that I think there is no harm in it". {Letters 111: 278) Few agreed. Stark was incapable of dispassionate analysis.

Occasionally, Stark's vignettes of village life are uncomplimentary about the effects of Western interference on local government and her insights are invaluable. The removal of traditional tribal authority meant that there was no effective mechanism for dealing with a murderer: "the tribes are no longer supposed to be in authority and there is no government visible able to take their place; and the family of the murdered man are clamouring". {Winter in Arabia: 82)

The expedition had problems concerning the house in which they were living. Their landlord was: "a bitter-faced old man who tried to slip away without drinking tea. This is a slur 1 had no intention of putting up with, and had him forcibly recalled by Qasim, for it is a mistake to overlook any social carelessness..."(Winter in Arabia: 16-11) Neither was

81

tea drinking a pleasant custom practiced by a leisurely society: it sealed a pact, signifying

that no mischief would be caused between the drinkers.

Her solo journey to die coast which Stark made at the conclusion of the dig was the most

impressive achievement of the expedition. She returned by one of die old Incense Routes

and investigated the two known possible sites of fabled Cana. She had continual

problems widi her guides, who wanted more money dian she had to give them and who

were too grasping to feed her mounts so diat they collapsed under her. She was repeatedly

sick, and always frightened: she could possibly have completed part of her travels by taxi,

as she ordered, but then claimed that she had countermanded cars on at least two

occasions, (lending credence to Thesiger's critical views on her achievements). She still

managed to sympathize with the plight of the Arabs: their poverty had made them

grasping and they were so much poorer than she. The journey was maddeningly slow

because the party had to acknowledge the formalities. Ceremonial coffee drinking was a

kind of bribe:

Al i carries over his shoulder my leather-fringed bag filled with coffee berries, which are

produced in the houses one rests at, according to the custom of this land: the host is put to no

expense, and his prestige suffers if one passes him by. I could not help feeling rather relieved

at the thought that we were travelling in such uninhabited country; in a populous region one

would never get on at all. (Winter in Arabia: 259)

A t Other times, she amusingly indicated that if locals would not trouble to observe the

formalities, then she would not either:

The chief of the Ba Qutmi was absent, and his two sons sat in their tower and did not come to

see me, so that I took this opportunity to uphold the prestige of my sex and nation, refusing to

visit their mother in the harim...The social deadlock was very welcome, for it allowed us to

rest in peace...(Winter in Arabia: 261)

She never quite knew what was going to happen next. In fact, travel was menacing. At

every halt:

the men around, divided into parts like a Greek chorus, spoke for me and against me in low

voices: at every halt, unless one happens to have a friend already there, this chorus takes place

- and the traveller's most important business is to see that the party for him remains in the

ascendent. (Winter in Arabia: 266)

She used every weapon at the disposal of her ready tongue - whether fair or not, when

there were objections to her photography. She rudilessly exploited the weak position of

other women:

a woman... began to shout angry reproaches to the men... who let the Unbeliever take pictures

in their land. Uneasiness began to be felt; the headman's uncle looked angrily down; 1 had to

take some notice.

"One thing," I remarked, "is ever the same in your land and in mine."

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"And what is that?" said they.

"'Hie excessive talk of women." The delighted audience rushed to the edge of the ledge to shout this remark down with embellishments, and with a last vindictive snap the female voice was Silent. But 1 lingered as little as I could; demands for money began to be heard...(Winter in Arabia: 266-267)

One can hardly blame her for using the low opinion towards women in the area to such

good effect, although one rather wishes that she had not. Scruples were not somediing

she could afford and they did not trouble her conscience, then or later. Never far from

Stark's droughts was the feeling diat she was travelling through a harsh, medieval land.

When she arrived at fortress called 'Azzan, she described it as:

perhaps like some rough little court of the early Carlovingians, helpless among their turbulent unlettered men. So the Sultans of'Azzan lived, holding the beduin precariously at bay, paying out blackmail and clinging, with desperate and unsuccessful effort, to the safety of their only remaining source of income, their trade-route to the sea. (Winter in Arabia: 269-270)

She was not a romantic when she viewed the actual operation of the Beduin life-style.

Stark's vision of the Orient was based on hard-eyed reality. She was often in danger and

yet succeeded in extracting herself from difficult situations. Women had special problems

in the East. Part of the way of dealing with the East was to accept tacitly, or openly as

Stark did, often with great effect, that women were inferior. Stark once wrote in her diary

that: '"Most of my life is in the man's world'...I was brought up to the man's world and have

always liked it through its ups and downs." (Dust in the Lion's Paw: 51)"^ Since she had no

choice but to accept male views in order to share their life in the East, she never thought

too much about the implications of male domination. Most Arabs in positions of

authority and with whom Stark negotiated, expected her to identify with the male point

of view, though herself a woman. As Judith Fetterley said of the female reader of books

written from the point of view of the dominant male society: "the female reader is co-

opted into participation in an experience from which she is explicitly excluded; she is

asked to identify with a selfhood that defines itself in opposition to her; she is required to

identify against herself."^ Some of Stark's success on her travels included doing just that.

Her non-theoretic stance is probably her greatest strength. It enabled her to focus upon

the situations in which she found herself, where a woman of greater scruples or loyalty to

other women would hesitate. It provided her with a sureness of judgment about her

actions, which though essentially based on self-interest, guaranteed her success where

others might well have failed.

5 Freya Stark. Dust in the Lions Paw: Autobiography 1939-1946. London: John Murray. 1961. Judith Fetterley. The Resisting Reader: A Feminist Approach to American Fiction. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. c l978 . p xii.

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Malise Ruthven comments: "She understood, and to some extent sympathized with, resentment against colonial exclusiveness, even though she remained an imperialist at heart", (Ruthven: 78) and I think that this has been established. In discussing Stark's approach to the East, he says:

Did Freya idealize her Arabs? Like Doughty, by travelling alone and relying on the hospitality of the desert, she brought out what was best in their traditions; and like Doughty, she attributed their virtues to a common feeling with which she could identif/...For Freya, that special grace was the condition of die Bedouin's freedom, his commitment to 'an immaterial set of values'. (Ruthven: 69)

I do no t th ink tha t she ever idealized Arabs and equally 1 do not know how she

apparently acquired that reputation. It was part of the "Freya Stark myth". The British

and the Americans valued her opinions on the Arabs: it seemed to be an article of faith

and it suited them to believe it for propaganda purposes. She became South Arabian

expert at the Ministry of Information in London when war broke out. She then went to

Aden, seconded to the Colonial Office, after conferring with the Rt. Hon. Malcolm

MacDonald, Secretary of State for the Colonies, 1938-1939. (letters III: 275) Her real

reason for going to Aden had been to disseminate anti-Fascist propaganda in the Yemen.

She then reverted to her original brief of working in Cairo. (Dust in the Lion's Paw: 20)

She was asked to write a book about the Arabs for the general reading public in 1943 and

she resigned from the Foreign Office to write East is West. (1945) Her Foreword contains

a catalogue of the influential English ruling classes, most of whom she had met in the

East, and whom she thanked. It is difficult to believe that her views were so very removed

from their own.

Stark believed that she was assisting the cause of Arab democracy when she helped set up

Societies of the Brothers and Sisters of Freedom, in Egypt and Iraq. She said naively:

T h e effect of the British years of administration was that they provided as it were an umbrella of comparative security - a security which was used to allow the renascent Arab peoples the elbow room they needed. T h e mandates and protectorates were interpreted with integrity and have to their credit, after this short period of twenty-five years, the establishment of two sovereign nations, Iraq and Egypt. (East is West: xix)

She Stated that it was only to safeguard their route to the East that the British were

interested in the area and that: "Safe transit, and not 'imperialism' is, therefore, the

motive in the Arab world." (East is West: xix) Our eyes are not so innocent. She

commented of Libya in 1940, when Italian interest had been subdued:

Al l that we need to remember is the right of human beings to manage their own affairs. Their incompetence, at any rate when it endangers the general comfort and peace, may, and does, require assistance; but it does not give us the right to take things away from them." (East is West: 81)

84

However, as Stark subsequent discussion indicates, a great deal of interference took place in practice. Britain, Holland and Germany were interested in Iraqi oil and a temporary British occupation of the country occurred.

Stark was always highly critical of "Zionist nonsense" (Letters 111: 275) and was anti-Semitic. As she became furdier removed from the need to empathize widi the East, so her views progressively calcified into a kind of ultra-imperialism, so that in 1967, after entertaining former Cairo friends including Sir Harry Luke, a retired Colonial administrator, she commented:

The poor idiotic Arabs I have always felt should never be allowed to touch their own affairs, but the mistake was originally ours and anyone who knew that world could foresee the reaping of a whirlwind for the last forty years. It could be settled now and Israel could make herself safe if she were magnanimous in victory and left it to the big powers to settle. But she won't. {Utters VIII: 125)

In conclusion, these three chapters have followed the progress of Stark's vision of the East and observed the enormous distance her understanding had reached since she had first seen Sinbad the Sailor in every passing ship in the harbour. It has been a journey both real and metaphorical, from innocence to experience.

The East meant as many things to her as it did to most European travellers who landed on its shores. She was richly rewarded. It satisfied her sense of romanticism by offering her freedom and adventure where before life had often seemed very bleak. It offered her the hope, finally realized, that she might join the mighty men of the Empire by marrying one of them. It provided her with subjects and landscapes for description. Because she spoke Arabic and became regarded as an expert on local affairs, she gained position and was provided with a sense of her own importance, otherwise denied her in an expatriate community which had no more time for unmarried women than did Britain. She used her knowledge of the East to gain influence at governmental level in Britain and by the time the Second World War broke out, to gain fairly prestigious employment in the East. She was known as the supporter of the educated "effendi" class in Iraq and Egypt although her books indicate that she really sympathized with the down-trodden local people, who guided her steps, fed her and cared for her welfare on her travels. It was the Imperial connection which kept her in the East, and Imperialist structures. Her mapping and other geographical discoveries earned her a scholarly reputation, followed by medals, honours and finally, a title.

A Winter in Arabia spelt out the low points in East-West relationships, and indicated that she had a sensitivity towards the local born and poor which was well in advance of her time. Her brief but intensive travels into the hinterland provided her with a perspective

85

upon Syria, Persia or Southern Arabia which was and indeed probably still is, denied to

most people. As she was well aware, she owed as much to her ability to communicate

with the people in their own language as to her privileged position.

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CHAPTER 6

REVIEWS AND REPUTATION

Although Freya Stark gained a reputation for special knowledge of Middle Eastern

peoples, 1 have established that it was a reputation of doubtful foundation. Biographies

endorse her own assessments of herself, but another source of information was available to

me in the form of review articles. As she was widely reviewed by reputable publications, 1

hoped to find answers to the puzzle of how a woman verging on middle age and with a

non-specialist background had selected Syria, N.W. Persia and Southern Arabia as

suitable exploration sites. Even Lawrence's Syria was relatively unknown to the general

public. They may, of course, all have selected quite by chance, in view of the fact that

most of the Middle East was of close interest to one or the other of the colonizing powers.

With this question in mind, 1 examined reviewers' statements, and those made by Stark

on the question of how she had come to explore these particular areas.

Some writers declare that they never read reviews of their books but Stark took a great

deal of unconcealed interest in hers, even after she became a well-established writer.

Having received a copy of Dust in the Lion's Paw (1961) whilst embarking on a holiday in

Turkey, she said: "It is tantalizing to wait till 1 reach Istanbul to know what the reviews

say". (Letters VIII: 33) She set die record straight promptly widi anybody who disagreed

with what she had said, regardless of their identity, including Sir Reader Bullardl,

Ambassador to Teheran 1944-1956. (Letters VIII: 70) Was it professionalism, or had

Freya Stark invested in a "legend" which required careful nurture? I suspected the latter.

I investigated how she had gained her reputation and it appears that throughout her long

writing career, the Times Literary Supplement (T.L.S.) had reviewed her books

prominently and audioritatively. In 1934, The Valleys of the Assassins was reviewed by die

T.L.S., which stressed her scientific achievements in Persia, where she filled in: "parts of

an older map in which Prester John and the Man of the Mountains had kingdoms".^ She

offered careful descriptions of the murals painted on the walls of the Governor's castle in

Alishtar Fort, and in contrast, she indulged in an illegal treasure hunt, and was arrested.

Her subsequent brush with the law resulted in the discovery of the reversal of Western

1 Sir Reader Bullard had once been her superior and had been unimpressed with her honesty after an unfortunate incident over the sale of a car which he and others believed to be the property of his embassy and she did not.

2. "The Valleys of the Assassins". T.L.S. 1934. 369.

87

expectations of law and order. In Luristan everyone shot at the police, and the police at

everyone else; and two privates had beaten their sergeant for his misdemeanours. Her

third journey, to the Throne of Solomon, a little known highland region to the south of

the Caspian Sea, resulted in writing which assumes a new, lyrical tone. Her daring is

stressed and so are her positive scientific achievements and she is applauded for not

stressing the discomforts of the trip. The review singles out her positive attitude towards

the local people, but makes surprising omission of her rescue from what she diagnosed

(doubdlilly) as malaria and dysentery, and from which she had thought she might die.

I decided initially that die T.L.S. had forged her reputation by such informative and favourable reviews, and although this may be true, it can only be part of the story, since by the time The Valleys of the Assassins was printed, she had already received fame beyond her wildest dreams.

It is odd to reflect that Stark's travels in Persia could scarcely be considered a success,

despite the approval of the T.L.S. Twice she was escorted from the area. She did not

find what she was looking for - either buried treasure or valuable artifacts. Her casual

encouragement of local people to loot graves is discreditable and her trips through the

area were so brief as to qualify for a cursory Cook's tour, with shades of Waring^ wafting

around. A true adventurer, she went to Persia on the vaguest of missions, telling her

father that she wanted to repeat her successes among the Druses, by visiting the fortresses

of the Assassins. {Letters I: 192) It is true that she did locate Assassins' Castles, but not

with any serious intent. Her strictly amateur approach was to question local people. She

had no time to survey largely inaccessible sites in detail and Molly Izzard, having surveyed

the exploration area herself, rejects the idea that Stark could have done what she claimed,

within the time she allowed. (Izzard: 19) It is possible that she did not. Stark was not

that kind of explorer and neither was she above extravagant claims - after all nobody else

was known to have been there for a very long time, except for local people.

She arrived in Baghdad in 1929 and made explorations of remote Persia over a three year

period, from 1930-1932. She had been well advised by someone about what to explore,

saying only: "I am very vague about it all, but am trying to find out some more before

going out..." {Letters I: 193). In fact, I found diat no less a person than Captain Holt had

guided her into the mapping of the Alamut area. {Beyond Euphrates: 91). He was the one

person who could claim expert knowledge of the area. It was also he who had organized

Anthony Powell. What's Become of Waring. Fontana Books. Glasgow: Collins. 1979. First published Cassell, 1939. The hero, Waring, the unsuccessful son of a publisher, undertakes imaginary travels.

88

Persian lessons, and transport for her. Whether by design or accident, Holt, who was Oriental Secretary in Baghdad, appears also to have aided her in becoming a presumably unofficial intelligence agent for the unobtrusive exploration of N. W. Persia.

He was by no means the only person involved in die development of Stark's career. I found that it was at the suggestion of Lionel Smith, in Baghdad in 1930, diat she had shown die Alamut records to Arthur Hinks, who was secretary of die Royal Geographical Society^. It was Hinks who had suggested that she should learn the elements of surveying and make a second trip to the area (Beyond Euphrates: 185) and he was unusually cooperative, offering her "odierwise unprocurable maps". (Beyond Euphrates: 193) There may well have been informal links between Holt, Smith, and Hinks.

There were others too who were encouraging her to explore further. A Mr [Guy] le Strange, an adventurer: "is most anxious I should go again to Alamut and investigate more fully", she reported. (Beyond Euphrates: 194) She also spent substantial time with Buddicom's cousin. Sir Henry Lawrence, who worked for the India Office, in London, directly before her second trip. (Beyond Euphrates: 195) She duly returned to die area in 1931 and filled in die map of the Sardab Rud area for the Survey of India. This is not the carefree behaviour of an amateur who just happened to spend two holidays in the same remote area by chance. Rather, it is the purposeful behaviour of an adventurer, strictly unofficial, and unpaid, in view of her recurrent financial problems.

Sir Kinahan Comwallis (1883-1959), who was Adviser to the Ministry of Interior, Iraq Government 1921-1935, may have been in over-all charge, and the person ultimately responsible for Stark's career taking the successful turn that it did. He worked at the Foreign Office in London with Stark in 1939, and was Ambassador to Baghdad in 1941-1945. He remained friendly with Stark after she had lost contact with Holt, and may even have overseen her wartime career.

After the mapping venture. Stark experienced financial problems. Holt obtained a minor commission for her and she wrote the annual report on Iraq for The Times from Holt's notes and dictation, and he persuaded the editor of the Baghdad Times to employ her temporarily, although both men were initially reluctant to facilitate her remaining in Baghdad on a long-term basis. However, she eventually worked for the Baghdad Times from February, 1932 until March 1933. She was keen to become War Correspondent for The Times on the Kurdish war in 1932, in which Holt was involved. Though refused

It is noted elsewhere that Lionel Smith was responsible for bringing the Baghdad edition of Baghdad Sketches to the attention of the R.G.S.

89

permission to enter the area, she was given access to certain despatches by the Air Vice

Marshall, Sir Edgar Ludlow Hewitt, in order to write an article for The Times. Sir Edgar

was British Commander of Operations and provided yet another link in the network. As

temporary war correspondent, she was involved in a small, unofficial way, in British

military activity in die area. Most of all, she was making friends in high places. As an

adventurer, she was free to do so. It is probable that her status appeared uncertain simply

because it was uncertain, especially to the casual onlooker. At one stage she had even

lived in a diplomatic house in Baghdad, in the absence of its owners. She also recorded

that Mr Summerhayes, the consul in Hamadan "never asks me why I have come to Persia",

(Beyond Euphrates: 219) indicating that her status had perceptibly changed since her

arrival in Baghdad in 1929.

She seems to have used her uncertain status and influence to the best effect. 1 also deduce that the rewards for her mapping ventures were not in the form of a regular position and a salary but in kind, because it was after her successful mapping exploit that honours were bestowed upon her. In 1933, she received the Back grant from the Royal Geographical Society, for her travels in Luristan. In 1934, she received the Burton Medal of the Royal Asiatic Society. She also received encouragement to continue with her travels.

Stark had gone to the right kind of area, if any intrigue were involved, and there probably

was. She describes Baghdad "colony" in the 1930s as having a cloak and dagger

atmosphere. It was, she said: "rather like a cathedral town involved in Edgar Wallace.

They put me down as Edgar Wallace undiluted and the cathedral part has been

disapproving". (Beyond Euphrates: 132) When Captain Holt told her that the British

Intelligence Service was observing her movements, she expressed herself delighted, even

hoping to be roped "into the government service" as a spy. (Beyond Euphrates: 147) Was

she? Not, I think, at any official level.

She had certainly gained a reputation in Baghdad as an adventurer and local people urged

her to hunt for hidden treasure in Persia in September, 1932. She set off immediately,

causing a great deal of trouble. One man was sent to rescue her and six others, who

intended to murder her, had converged, she reported. (Beyond Euphrates: 284) The young

man who was supposed to join her on the hunt was officially detained and die Iraqi police

escorted Stark to the nearest border. (The Valleys of the Assassins: 185) It was just the

kind of situation she enjoyed. The scent of the financially discreditable was never very far

behind Stark, from smuggling in her early years in Ventimiglia, to casual cheating of

customs in later years.

90

She left Baghdad in March 1933, having prepared herself well for her next venture, which

was apparently to be in Russia. This surprising about turn was occasioned by the fact that

Captain Holt was expecting to go there. (Beyond Euphrates: 127) In preparation, she was

taking three Russian lessons a week with a Mme. Halutin, Captain Holt's teacher, in

Baghdad. Despite this, when she arrived back in Italy, on receiving news of the Back

Grant, she decided to use it to travel not to Russia, but to Southern Arabia: "I had long

thought of more general travels in Arabia", (Beyond Euphrates: 296) she explained, as

though she felt that an explanation was needed. It was, in the circumstances. Captain

Holt's obstinate failure to reciprocate her interest in him after she left Baghdad: "there

was still one meeting in the summer full of pain", (Coast of Incense: 18) had almost

certainly prompted the change of plan. She had even had cosmetic surgery on her return,

to make herself more attractive to him.

Her exploits in the Hadhramaut are related in The Southern Gates of Arabia (1936) which

was reviewed by the T.L.S. in the same year. It said that her references to the "South-

East Arabian 'Incense Routes' of remote antiquity"^ stirred popular imagination. Stark's

unique contribution had been to update twenty-year-old information on the area.

Reference was made to the drama of her illness and her collapse at Shibam where she "lay

long at death's door". The reviewer is enlightened, and discusses the area with an easy

familiarity. He is impressed at the manner in which she has thrown light on the politico-

social structure of the Hadhramaut, and on the unrest exhibited by the tribesmen of

powerful families. The Appendix to Stark's book, which deals with the Southern-Incense

Route, is particularly commended. The history of the area is explained and is illustrated

with one of Stark's truly remarkable photographs of the characteristic multi-storey

architecture of Shibam. The reviewer is more knowledgeable about the area than Stark is,

and very concerned with explaining its true situation to readers. Twice in succession, it

seems that Stark has been inspired to choose, or more probably, have chosen for her, areas

which just happened to interest the British government greatly.

Seen in the Hadhramaut (1938), a book of Stark's photographs of the same area, was

reviewed by the T.L.S. in 1938. The reviewer commends Stark for her vision of "the

enchanted lands of Southern Arabia".^ The "curious sky-scraper architecture" of the area

is mentioned and it says that Stark's photography permitted "something of diat ancient

harmony" to survive.

5. "The Southern Gates of Arabia". "On the Ancient Incense Road". T.L.S. 1936. 447.

6. "Seen in the Hadhramaut". "With a Camera in Arabia" Pictures of an Ancient World. T.L.S.

1938 .811 .

91

A Winter in Arabia (1940), her second book about the Hadhramaut, was reviewed next by the T.L.SJ The trip had been funded largely by Lord Wakefield, and endorsed by die Royal Geographical Society. Her book was prominently advertised on the front cover of the T.L.S. , which also contained one of Stark's photographs of the area. Sir Kinahan Comwallis endorses her book, despite her travels being partly illegal. Her prose style is approved and quoted and her capacity to handle Arabs is noted. Stark's own evaluation of her abilities widi Arabs, endorsed by the T.L.S. may well have been responsible for the reputation she acquired in diis area. If so, it was effective self-publicity. It was felt that she was different from Doughty, T.E. Lawrence and Philby, because she provided intimate sketches of the Arabs.

Whilst her companions, an unnamed Archaeologist and Geologist, (the names of whom the reviewer admitted were common knowledge) "went about their business Miss Stark watched over it and everyone else's." Stark said that it had been "an easy and unadventurous journey". Her concluding prose on her final solo trip to Cana, along an old Incense Route is also quoted. The reviewer applauds her for her charity, calm courage, quietness and understanding. The difficulties encountered by the three women are glossed over, as is Stark's frequent illnesses and requests for air-rescue. Her visit to Southern Arabia was well-timed from the political point of view; it seems to have been this, as well as the fact that she was a woman at a time when women's activities were customarily ignored, which ensured that her travels were well-publicized. She says that her travel accounts were highly sought after, and she reported that "/our willing publishers" had approached her. (Letters II: 152) Her unofficial literary agent, if he existed, had impressive persuasive powers.

It is impossible to say exactly who was responsible for the Hadhramaut journeys, not so much for lack of evidence, but because Stark's letters reveal such a variety of people and institutions who were involved. Lady Iveagh in Asolo supplied her with introductions to Lord Halifax, the current Colonial Secretary and he in turn gave her an introduction to the Nizam of Hyderabad, who drew his bodyguard from the people of the Hadhramaut and commanded much respect in the area. Sir Denison Ross^ noticed her existence, (Letters II: 161) and Sir Percy Cox, who had had a distinguished career in the Middle East and was currently President of the Royal Geographical Society, "said he would do what he could for me whenever I wanted it." (Letters II: 163) She had also been introduced to a Minister

"By Air and Camel Caravan Miss Freya Stark in Arabia." "A Winter in Arabia". T .L.S . 1940.

318. H e had organized a few weeks of Arabic lessons for her in London at the Schoo l of Oriental Studies, in 192L (Utters I: 59)

92

of the King of Arabia. Finally, Izzard reveals that the daughter of an old family friend,

now a neighbour in Ventimiglia, was responsible for her introductions to Group Captain

Portal and Anton Besse in Aden, while Lady Allenby had seconded the latter

introduction. (Izzard: 81) The Royal Geographical Society and die Royal Central Asian

Society had also provided other useful introductions. Everyone seems to be prepared to

support die adventurer. Whatever else Stark was, she was not a lone woman on a lonely

mission in the Hadhramaut.

She set out purposefully to gain influence and said in 1936: "There are too few people in

the Cabinet who know die East and its conditions." {Letters 111: 54) She contacted Peter

Fleming, the writer and traveller, dien working for the Times, and wrote articles which

were published in the Times and the Telegraph about the threat of Italian activities in the

Yemen. (Letters IH: 41) She recorded: "I have been amusing myself by giving dinner to

the head of the Near East section of the Foreign Office and got in a long talk on the

Yemen". (Letters III: 52) Her home in Italy had provided her with a vantage point to

observe the growing Fascist menace. She met many well-placed people at the great

country houses to which she was invited in 1933-1936, including Lord and Lady

Leconsfield at Petworth, and Lord Willingdon, Viceroy of India (1931-1936).

"Real" explorers have never thought much of her minor attempts at mapping, when she

fixed a few points, over a few days of travel. It takes longer. Stark was well aware of this

herself. She reported that the explorer St. John Philby had spent four months mapping

the country on his Najran trip. (Letters III: 53) From this, it is concluded that she

wielded influence at the political level. Her writings and explorations appear to be

secondary to that.

Freya Stark's first Middle Eastern trip had been to Brumana in French mandated Syria,

where she practiced her Arabic in late 1927, and she had organized a brief expedition

there with a friend in 1928. However, the letters which form the basis of Letters from Syria

(1942) were not published until fourteen years later. In an adulatory review. Stark is

praised for being one of those who come not to impose Western knowledge and values but

"to understand, to interpret, to share the life of the desert".^ Her descriptions of her

friendliness with her Syrian teacher are savoured, as "she minded her p's and q's with

dwindling reserves of discretion". Her residence in a local household in Damascus,

instead of in an hotel, is applauded. The review attempts to locate Stark in the context of

other explorers of the East: notably Lady Hester Stanhope, Richard Burton, Charles

"Letters from Syria." T.L.S. 1942. 477.

93

Doughty, T.E. Lawrence, and Gertrude Bell and concludes that their only common

quality was "extreme oddity". They were: "Difficult, angular, turbulent, perverse, vivid,

subtle, single-minded, incalculable, absurd, terrifically nonconformist". Letters from Syria was a good source book for diose wishing to examine first contacts with the "shock of the East".

The above reviewer is mistaken in saying that the desert travellers he mentioned above

did not come to govern, change or save. Whatever their initial reasons for travel, T.E.

Lawrence and Gertrude Bell were to become paid government functionaries, and Stark

was currently working for the Ministry of Information in the Middle East. The reviewer's

praise is also misplaced in saying that Stark shared the life of the desert, since she spent

only twelve consecutive days outside the confines of the town. She has also received

some retrospective character enhancement. Dr Francis Edmunds, mentioned frequently

by Stark in the Letters^ remembers her to be not wildly flirtatious and card-playing at all

but "deeply thoughtful, very serious, rather lonely, a quiet figure..." (Izzard: 47) The

review stresses her unusual rapport with the Syrians. From this, it is evident that her

rapport with "natives", a quality attributed by Stark to herself, and duly noted in the

review on A Winter in Arabia, has become an article of faith. Of such are reputations

made.

The question must also be raised about why the letters were published so long after Stark's

travels? Stark says that her publisher found them in his cupboard, and then proposed

publication, (Letters from Syria: ix) but, in June, 1942 she had been awarded the Founders

Medal of the Royal Geographical Society, and whether the book was to commemorate the

award, or the award to commemorate the book, is a moot point. Sir Sydney Cockerell

edited the Syrian letters, and was her most ardent supporter. He also persuaded her to

write her autobiography. The book nicely bridged the gap between her pre-war writings.

East is West (1945) and the first volume of her autobiography in 1950. The review of

Letters from Syria contributed to Stark's notoriety, helping to establish retrospectively, but

also to date, her reputation, and kept her in the public eye, but such small scale travel as it

depicted belonged to an earlier generation of travellers.

Stark mentions that Dr. Brandt of the Chicago Oriental Institute suggested that she

should write East is West.^^ A T.L.S. review reveals that the British were still anxious to

keep friendly with Arabs: "The Arab world is changing before our eyes..."!^ but: "The

10. East is West (1945) p. xiii. 11. "East is West". "Change in the Arab World." T.L.S. 1945. 435.

94

interests of Britain and of the Arab countries march hand in hand" and that it was British

friendship which "enabled the renascent Arab people to find themselves". The review

claimed (very doubtfully) that Egypt and most of peninsular Arabia remained friendly

with Britain during the Second World War and that Stark's book: "is an investigation at

once simple and profound of the reasons" for this. Her name is linked with that of Sir

Kinahan Comwallis in die formation of friendly relations widi Iraq. Her organization of

youth into the Brotherhood of Freedom in Egypt and Iraq signalled her popularity with

the young and her views made "her a unique interpreter of die Middle East to the western

world." Stark's sympathy for the Palestine question was discussed and she is particularly

commended for her ability to relate "matters of high policy" "to the pressing human needs

of the Arab peoples". "She treats them with a lively human touch, ennobled by a wisdom

based on deep and sympathetic knowledge". It claims that Stark herself appealed to

Middle Class Arabs. The secret was her "keen realization that young men everywhere are

idealists". Britain had fought for the same cause - decent government in Egypt, Iraq, and

elsewhere in the Middle East and their modem pathway was identical.

In fact, the book is no more than a disparate collection of entertaining personal travel

sketches and perhaps that was all it was ever intended to be. However, it was taken much

more seriously than that and assumptions about Stark's credentials as spokeswoman of the

Westernized Arab world are increasingly assumed in this review, serving to complete the

enhancemen t of her reputation. Her vaunted sympathy with contemporary "young

effendi" is a new idea, although the conclusion may flow naturally from her job in Cairo

during the war, when she held tea parties for such young men. T h e men of the

Brotherhood were essentially minor clerks with whom she felt no affinity whatever, either

in Baghdad or later in Egypt. As she had said before her eyes became clouded by

Imperialism, (or more probably by Imperialists) in 1930:

I don't know why one should bother so much about how Iraq is governed. The matter of importance to us is to safeguard our own affairs. It is only because we assume that the two are bound up together that we give so much weight to the local politics. It seems to me that the one only vital problem is to find out how the things we are interested in can be made safe independently of native politics...for I imagine no one would wish to stay here for the mere pleasure of doing good to people who don't want it. (Beyond Euphrates: 129)

As noted elsewhere. Stark greatly preferred the unsophisticated peasant who hired her a

donkey and who submitted, uncomplaining, to the bullying of officious government

agents. She had always had a kind word for these downtrodden people.

All of her subsequent books suffer from repeating large portions verbatim of what she had

written previously. Not everyone appreciated her apparent change of direction towards

autobiography either, especially the Geographical Journal, which felt that she was failing to

95

uphold her reputation as an explorer. They always remind their readers that they helped to forge it - as indeed they did.

In a substantial review of Traveller's Prelude (1950), die first volume of her autobiography, the T.L.S. reviewer comments that the little Stark has said about her fether and modier render the relationships between them and their daughter enigmatic. She cannot offer much insight into herself either:

W h a t manner of person is this whose pen has the glamour of the sun-dipped, and whence did she spring? She does not let us into the secret of that gift, for she does not know it, seems unaware that she possesses the gift in any unusual degree

The compliment is graceful, but Stark must have been aware of "the gift", since she had been earning her living by her pen for twenty years. The "Stark legend" is full of unsubstantiated claims such as one, obviously not made by a parent, that she spoke three languages by the age of three. The review stresses the importance of W.P. Ker and mountaineering in her earlier life and observes that the book reads like a novel.

In contrast, when Traveller's Prelude was reviewed by Vita Sackville'West,^^ there is little reference to the actual book at all. The review is in the form of a breathless personal letter, an apology for the contrast between Stark's life, so rich in experience, and the reviewer's own. She was in the "old tradition of English eccentrics", vulnerable and brave and also a smuggler and pirate.

Janet Adam Smith summarizes the book briefly in New Statesman. She observes that Stark is a self-made woman, and revealed considerable determination to overcome her unpromising background. The book made painful reading, although Stark presents some masterly portraits of herself and her mother. She singles out the active role Stark played in organizing her own life: "she got herself to Bedford College in 1912...TTien she set herself to learn Arabic, - 'because I thought that the most interesting things in the world were likely to happen in the neighbourhood of oil'". Her portrait of herself is drawn with "lucidity and candour". ^

Geographical Journal reviews Traveller's Prelude and her second volume. Beyond Euphrates (1951) together, two years later, in 1952. Stark saw her "destiny as that of'the wild soul'

12. "Traveller's Prelude". "Alps and Sanctuary". T .L .S . 1950. 630.

Traveller's Prelude. " A Letter to Freya Stark." The Spectator. 1 8 5 . 1 9 5 0 . 5 6 8 . Stark had met Sackville-West through Margaret Jourdain in 1936. {Letters III: 55 ) "Traveller's Prelude." Janet Adam Smith. New Statesman. 4 0 . 1 9 5 0 . 406 .

96

who must escape from the domestic cage . "15 D.M. [Dorothy Middleton] says that the

books are not of great interest to those who expect her usual travel accounts, since both

are based on letters, "strung together by a narrative of events." This is one of the first

direct notes of criticism of Stark's method of composition. It was felt that a book should

be something more than private letters, the contents of which had usually been published in previous books.

T h e T.L.S. reviews Beyond Euphrates in 1951 and it also comments that the material consists of re-cycled letters:

This is the most challenging method of autobiography, yet perhaps because it involves comparatively brief labour with the pen, it is so commonly used...lt usually fails to produce literature because most people's letters are not, and indeed should not be, well enough written to survive many years. °

It draws at tent ion to her words on die futility of "enlightened Imperialism" for an Iraq which did not much value good government.

In another letter -review, of Beyond Euphrates,^"^ Vita Sackville-West compares her own

Persian j o u r n e y l ^ to diat made by Stark in The Valleys of the Assassins. Sackville-West

praises Stark's prose, which is "taut, tight, and economical. Of course you were bom with

a natural aptitude, but it takes more dian diat; it takes a rigorous training over years". She

is "eminent amongst the last of the Elizabethans."

A T.L.S. review of her third autobiographical volume, The Coast of Incense (1953)^^,

drags out tired cliches, noting that Southern Arabia was a land of "dread mystery" when it

was explored by "the intrepid Miss Stark". She had nearly died in the Wadi Hadhramaut.

"The chief delight was not to be afraid; a common experience, leading in her case to

uncommon results." "She is puzzled when asked what makes her style. There is nothing

to it but a natural ear for cadence and the wish to get the meaning right." The review

mentions her sojourn in a harem whilst sick with measles in 1935, and her request for

ambulance rescue from Shibam. Stark said that she had written about these experiences

whilst the shadow of the Second World War was upon her and that: "I can never

remember a time when I have not tried to write for a century that follows rather than for

the one in which I live." However, the review also presents the positive aspects of her

"Travellers Prelude." "Beyond Euphrates". D.M. [Dorothy Middleton] Geographical Journal. 118. 1952. 90-91.

16 "Beyond Euphrates." "Nourishment Shared". T.L.S. 1951. 659. 17. "Beyond Euphrates." A Traveller's Autobiography". The Spectator 187. 1951. p 511.

Vita Sackville-West. Passenger to Teheran. Hogard:i Press: Leonard Virginia Woolf. 1926. "The Coast of Incense." "To the Arabian South". T.L.S. 1953. 605-606.

97

letter insertions:

She conveys her effects by a means which might prove dangerous in less delicate hands; for her method is to alternate letters written at the time with passages of reflection added later.

When she writes, she says she will take hours, days and weeks to find the word she wants for Its exactne^; She writes as a painter works. She uses a palette, as she did in her youth, and as her father did.

There are inaccuracies in this review. Four bombers and not an ambulance, rescued Stark

in the Hadhramaut, and as I have established, she was not near death, merely depressed.

Although Stark's parents had been sporadic artists in her youth, Stark was not. She had

taken lessons in drawing in die 50s, widi mixed results, and some of her sketches illustrate

her later books. The reviewer believed that "her true subject: [was] herself, not the

particular landscape about which she chose to write, which could have been located

anywhere. "She will not admit diat die war, when it came, brought her world to an end."

Other people were to make the same two not-altogether-fair comments.

Peter Green, when reviewing The Coast of Incense (1953),20 uses a very different tone to

that adopted by Vita Sackville-West in The Spectator. He says that: "as prompted Dr.

Johnson's remark about women preachers: we are surprised that the thing should be done

at all," which is scarcely flattering to women travellers or of Stark's achievements. He

rejects the impulse to compare her with other noted women explorers of the area: she is "a

serious researcher and cartographer", and belongs in the tradition of T.E. Lawrence and

C.M. Doughty, because they share: "desert prose: a sculptured precision of language, rich

and bleak at once, that seems to be the reward of long seasons among the lonely wadis and

proud fierce tribesmen of Arabia." This does not mean that he is not critical: "TTie thing

one wants above all from an autobiography is a self-portrait", and that she fails to provide,

so that "our portrait of Miss Stark has to be patched together from hints and guesses."

This was tantalizing, since he feels that Stark does really know what factors made her an

explorer: love of research, liking for people and language, travel and a "deep diffidence in

social relations", to which she was paradoxically drawn. He feels that a more resolute self-

analysis would have enabled Stark to reveal something about the nature of "her life-long

passion for the Middle East" and also of the same characteristic in Bell or Doughty. The

book was not successful as autobiography, being repetitive of already published letters,

which were irksome, gushing, and repetitive, particularly of the word "lovely". He is

unfairly unhappy at her "absurdly exaggerated concern over a quarrel at Huraidha", since

her publisher insisted upon her toning down her comments. He felt that the delicacy of

20. "The Coast of Incense." "Desert Prose". The Spectator. 191. 1953. 516 and 518.

98

her feelings made it difficult to present an accurate portrait of herself. He is critical of her insular attitude towards plumbing and dirt, but finds that her photographs of the Hadhramaut made the area look far more attractive dian her descriptions, which included the diseases she contracted. He feels that her prose links are briefer and more to the point.

D. M. [Dorothy Middleton], reviewing The Coast of Incense for the Geographical Journal in 1954,21 also approves of Stark's prose, describing it as "a spare framework of nanrative". She observes that it lacks die enchantment of her earlier books, perhaps because Stark has blurred die highlights of her life, in her attempt to offer an overview. She feels that autobiographical detail obtrudes, which contradicts Peter Green of The Spectator, who feels that it is too spare. He says:

there is a tendency to smother such "moments of truth" in too great an accumulation of details - of illnesses, of personal relationships not fiilly explained, of isolated incidents not integrated with the general picture.

Middleton concludes that Stark should be allowed to make her own rules, since she is one of the great travellers, and a Gold Medallist of the R.G.S. It seems that she could still command their support.

A review of Dust in the Lion's Paw (1961) in the T.L.S.22 says that Stark "is almost as open a stylist as Doughty (whose influence in her early books is sometimes discernible)". It also suggests that she has had a charmed career in writing: "in her literary career she has ridden as unharmed through ambush country as she did as a young woman through the perilous valleys of Luristan."

This comment merely endorses observations I made earlier about her writing career. It is interesting that the T.L.S. reviewer raises the point of her uninterrupted flight to fame at this point, because from 1961 onwards, critical reviews of Stark's work emerge with more frequency and with more frankness. She had either been supported and protected up until this point by some person, or group, who was no longer in a position to do so, or tastes had simply changed - or both.

The review continues that she is a writer with many kinds of techniques at her disposal, and that "she uses her full powers of expression in her letters", however, the re-cycling of letters to her friends endangered the reader's relationship with Stark. Henry James had

21. "The Coast of Incense." D.M. [Dorothy Middleton]. Geographical Journal. 1 2 0 . 1 9 5 4 . 1 1 0 - 1 1 1 . 22. "Dust in the Lion's Paw." "The Persuasive Voice". T.L.S. 1961. 781-782. 781.

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already said that "Convertible literary stuff' could be used once only, and even diough

Stark has used it to good effect, it should not have been attempted. The tone of her

letters sounded snobbish today and even though she looked at it with "a completely fresh

eye", the first part of the book covered the same ground as Ease is West (1945). Stark was

simplistic in die matter of propaganda, and being: "Convinced to the depdi of her being

that our cause in the war was a just one, and diat anyone who believed odierwise was

blind not only to moral values but to self-interest, she set out to persuade people in the

Arabic-speaking world to share her be l ie f . T o this end, she formed committees of the

"Brotherhood of Freedom". The reviewer then discusses the effect of die White Paper in

1939, which encouraged Arabs to support die British cause. Many believed terms to be

too harsh towards the Jews, and even wartime could not make diem acceptable but Stark

had overlooked diis point. Her position on die question of Zionism vas the same as that

of die British government in 1939, when she went to the United States in 1943 as the

representative of the Ministry of Information, to counter anti-British propaganda,

propagated by the Zionists in America. She disturbed fanatical Zionist propaganda in the

States, but "never seems to have been aware of any weakness in her argument". Her

opinions are her arguments and it remained Stark's unproven opinion that the British had

done all they could on the Jewish question.

T h e Spectator no longer supported Stark uncritically either, and Simon Raven was derisive

when he reviewed Dust in the Lion's Paw in 1961.^^ He is critical of Stark's record as a

propagandist in the Middle East and the United States from 1939-1946, commenting

adversely on her appearance in photographs, and belittling her person as well as her

actions: "Miss Stark trotted hither and thither...", squaring herself morally, by calling

propaganda "persuasion" and by establishing her own rules of operation. Raven's review

concentrates exclusively on Stark's attitudes towards Zionism and propaganda.

Intellectuals had always mocked Stark's ardent patriotism. In Cairo, during the war,

Reggie Smith, husband of author Olivia Manning had written an irreverent verse

intended to be sung to a popular song, indicating that she was preaching to the converted

and that her young effendi were only earnest clerks. The verse concluded: "We just want

to R O O T for demo-cra-cee/We are Miss Stark's Wee F r e e . " 2 4

L. Collier, reviewing Dust in the Lion's Paw in Geographical Journal,^^ says that it was

23. "Dust in the Lion's Paw." "Sweet Persuasion". The Spectator. 207. 1961. 512-513. The tone of this and the review above is similar. It is possible that the same reviewer wrote both articles.

24. Artemis Cooper. Cairo in the War 1939-1945. London: Hamish Hamilton. 1989. p. 99

25. "Dust in the Lion's Paw." L. Collier. Geographical Journal. 128. 1962. 216-217. 217.

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autobiography only "incidentally" since the author had declared her intention of concentrating on her government activities during the last war. She had a strong sense of history and her book contains an account of the siege of Baghdad Embassy and amusing private letters. It is filled with caustic comment on die people she has met in the course of her propaganda work and these unpremeditated comments are more interesting than her polished works of travel: "where there is so much literary style". She was not entertaining on the subject of Zionism, maintaining that it was the reason for Arab defection after the war, whilst providing plenty of evidence that Arabs defected because the educated class was too small to counteract rabid nationalism. Lebanon, the one country with an educated class, was still pro-West. She could not have had many illusions about post-war Iraqi history, as a result of her experiences during the siege.

The writing of the book had given Stark endless problems - though not apparently about her views on Zionism and propaganda. She wrote to her publisher in March, 1960:

I think you overdo the taking out of personal bits and are in danger of turning it into a Report rather than an Autobiography? I was not happy about this...there is probably something wrong with the paragraphs you dislike and especially with those on Egypt where you seem to think I have a servant-hall taste for grandeur. (Letters VIII: 4)

Stark was subject to the compositional demands of her publisher, if not of its subject matter. Two months later, in May she wrote:

O n re-reading I agree the book is all wrong as it is now - being neither one thing nor the other. I am putting it into the present, shortening and speeding it...tell me where it drags...It is just possible the letters may some day be preferred, but not till I am dead!...I feel so at sea about this book. Never have 1 so little known what is good or bad! (Letters VIII: 10-11)

In late 1960, she wrote to a friend. Lady Cholmondeley:

The book is off at last and David Cecil has kindly offered to give it a look-over: it left me so harassed that I have no idea of it any longer. There is Diana Cooper^^, whose life work isn't writing, doing just what I would have liked to do, weaving the public and private events with a beautifiil natural spontaneity which all one's literary labour can't attain. (Letters VIII: 22)

When Elizabeth Monroe, an expert on Middle-Eastern affairs, reviewed the first volume of Stark's Letters, for the T.L.S. in 1975,^7 she commented on Stark's egotism, observing caustically that letters were usually published after a writer's death, by "some loving relation or admiring executor", who finds them in the attic. (In fact. Stark reputedly had

26. Lady Diana Cooper, the daughter of a Duke, was a nurse in the first world war, a successful actress and wife of an Ambassador, Duff Cooper. She had just written an autobiography. The Rainbow Comes and Goes. (1958)

27 " L e t t e r s I . " Elizabeth Monroe. "Traveller's Prelude". T.L.S. 1975. 132.

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had them published herself at a cost of three thousand pounds a year.^®) Although Stark

believed that she was "in the moulding until she was nearly forty", Monroe doubts that

she was ever malleable. Monroe considers that the letters are wordi printing, or in some

cases, reprinting, even though some of Stark's friends felt diat she had said enough in her

four volume autobiography. Monroe said that: "We owe the bulk of these letters to the

loving relationship that she contrived widi her fadier and her mother". (Her use of the

word "contrived" is interesting, and indicates that Monroe, who knew Stark, suspected

the relationship to be an artificial construct.) Stark had documented what travel was like

in the late twenties and early diirties and the social scene before Arab Nationalism

became acceptable in Baghdad, when Stark had been admonished for attempting to be

friendly with horh "natives" and British at the same time.

Gerald de Gaury, Stark's friend, writing in Geographical Jourml^^ about Letters /, reminds

the public that she had travelled extensively but "alone and without official or

institutional standing". This may well have been true of the years 1914-1930, but, as I

have already established, she had received a great deal of assistance at the highest possible

level from 1930 onwards during her journeys. This is something of which de Gaury must

have been aware, so that he is seen supporting the agreed "myth" on Stark's travels.

Elizabeth Monroe reviewed Letters II for the T.L.S. in 1976.^^ They covered the years

1930-1935, when Stark's fame was established, and she was solicited by Who's Who for her

autobiography. The distinction was due to "her readiness to take risks in wild country,

where the instinct of the inhabitants was either to rob and kill visitors or to welcome

them for the rarity value of their company...She excites curiosity, not cupidity." Stark was

better placed than male travellers because she was invited into harems. The three

journeys in the volume cover her most adventurous times. On the first journey, she

visited unidentified Assassin castles in N.E. Persia and "she climbed to the more

unscalable in her stockinged feet".^^ The interest in the book for old Arabian hands was

found in her depictions of the British in the thirties. She fell ill regularly and her "racing

heart" had forced her to abandon a visit to Shabwa. Letters, where the detail of daily

28. Molly Izzard. Freya Stark: A Biography. London: Hodder Stoughton. 1992, p. 20. This statement, apparently made by Stark, should be treated with caution. Letters I. Gerald de Gaury. Reviews. Geographical Journal. HI. 1975 .297-298 .

30 . "Letters 11". "Middle of the Journey". T.L.S., 1976. 169.

31, Monroe may have singled the feat out in ironical fashion. Most people doubted and cont inue to doubt Stark's word. Molly Izzard reveals that the B.B.C. brought a climber, Joe Brown, to scale the rock wall to the Assassins' castle of Maymun Dizand. Stark's book had not been found useful as a guide to topography. S h e had spent only nine days in the area, travelling from Qasvin to Resht on the Caspian. Izzard confirms my impression that Stark had had n o time for detailed exploration and extracted information regarding sites from the people living there. (Izzard: 19)

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living is more live, illustrate the traveller's mood better than books, and transport one

through time - a time: "when a woman of forty wondered whether it was demure and

proper to go off on a desert trip with a man and without a chaperone." (But I prefer to

think that Stark was often tongue in cheek about the conventions,)

Dorothy Middleton in Geographical Journal^^ finds that as a result of her public

recognition, Letters II was "less personal in dieir tone and content and more in the style of

journals to be preserved for publication". The implication is that Stark has become self-

consciously "aware of her destiny". However, she enjoys Stark's ability to laugh at Arab

repartee. Letters IlP^ is less interesting, because events in 1935-1939 were less interesting.

Stark returned unwell from her travels in Southern Arabia in 1935, had personal

relationships to sort out, and travelled to the Hadhramaut with Gertrude Caton

Thompson. It was an unhappy experience for all concerned. The letters overlap other

books but throw new light on events recounted in them. Letters IV was again dull: "The

war, inhibiting travel, did not provide Dame Freya with scope for her best writing"^" .

Stark did not having the backing of her usual publisher, John Murray, when publishing

her eight volumes of letters. She had lost the public interest as well, to which these not

wholly admiring reviews contribute. Subsequent volumes seem to have been ignored.

However, a friend, Patrick Leigh Fermor, himself a travel writer, gracefully compliments

her writing style in Letters VIII, in an extensive review in the T.L.S. which also includes

her book of photographs, Rivers of Time, and A Tower in a Wall, Maitland's biography.

Fermor observes that the letters: "form an intricate counterpoint with" three of her other

books.^^ They were "published as they stood", without "touching-up" and some were

written from Asolo, which had been "her home for almost a century". "She avoids the

effendi-world. It is the Bedouin and the mountain people that she loves, the barbarian

fringe and the nomads". Her correspondence is "the most coherent, impressive and

stimulating body of letters it is possible to imagine". Barriers had been dissolved by her

mastery of languages, good manners, formality and her lone state.

Leigh-Fermor is enthusiastic rather than accurate. Her letters were indeed heavily edited

before publication (see Appendix 2) and she had lived in the neighbourhood of Asolo for

closer to half a century (1926-1983). His attribution to her of a love of rough nomads

should also be treated with considerable caution. Stark had had very little experience of

" L e t t e r s ir. Dorotliy Middleton. Geographical Journal. 142. 1976. 536-537. 33. "Letters III" Geographicaljourrud. 143. 1977. 120. 34. "Letters IV." Geographicaljourrud. 144. 1978. 512. 35.' "Letters VIII." Patrick Leigh Fermor. T.L.S. 1983. 434.

103

rough living and did not seek it out.

After the war, Stark wrote essays which were well received and travelled extensively in Turkey. While her reviewers usually praised her writing highly, no one showed much interest in Turkey, which remained an enigma, even to Stark herself, for she focused firmly upon die remote classical past. From this, it is possible to examine the nature of the attraction of her earlier writing. A politically motivated audience had wanted to hear about, and also explain their own interest in die Middle East. By die middle fifties, die Empire was a spent force and its leaders were in retreat, in retirement or dead. Readers who wanted to continue reading about the mysterious Orient could not. Tourism had begun to take die mystery out of travel for the book-buying public, and oil had done the rest.

Reviewers agree diat Stark's most interesting work was performed in the nineteen thirties. After the Second World War, neither this type of exploration, nor the world which permitted it continued to exist and Stark's impact was lost. Her four-volume autobiography had die effect of seeming to keep this world and her achievements alive. Those of her reviewers who insisted diat her autobiography threw little more light upon the travels of her middle years than her travel books, were substantially correct. They mainly re-order already published information - but they are fascinating. Stark did not tap the same vein of mysticism in Turkey as she had when writing about Luristan and Southern Arabia. She was also less adventurous and much of her exploration took place from the Consul's yacht, so that she had little contact with local people and only a little to say about the scene surrounding her. Opinion was sharply divided upon her writing style and she remained silent on the politics of Turkey.

Why did Stark continue to write when it ceased to be an enjoyable or compelling activity?

A n autobiographical essay entitled "Montoria", in The Zodiac Arch (1968) offers a

compelling financial reason. In 1963, Stark had bought a hill, upon which she planned to

build a tiny retreat. Instead, she had built a huge, ugly house, which had swallowed up all

of her income, and quite a lot of that of her friends, who obstinately refused to relieve her

of the burden of running it. She continued to write, as do most other writers, because it

was her livelihood.

TTie mystique of her writing was apparently inextricably intertwined with the romance of

the East - and with British interests in the area. This seems to account for her enduring

success, despite some strong criticism of her post-war writing. It is evident that by the

1960s she could no longer command uncritical support. Sir Percy Cox, who had had a

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distinguished career in the Middle East before becoming President of the Royal

Geographical Society 1933-1936, keenly supported Stark until his death in 1937,

suggesting that the Royal Geographical Society was highly involved in supporting

governmental policy in the Middle East. The assumptions about Stark's credentials as

spokeswoman of the Westernized Arab world are increasingly assumed, and it was a useful

assumption, as far as the British Government was concerned. No hint that her

propaganda was unsophisticated and that not many people took it seriously appeared in

reviews until very late, despite the considerable doubt expressed in Cairo among her

contemporaries during the war. My conclusion is that her reputation was as carefully built

up, and just as zealously guarded, as diat of T.E. Lawrence. It becomes apparent by the

changing tone of reviews in the nineteen sixties that the Times Literary Supplement no

longer maintained a special relationship either with the subject of the Middle East, or

with Stark. It seems that the T.L.S. had not so much forged her reputation as loyally

upheld it. Her reputation lived on so that a later reviewer, Patrick Leigh Fermor, stated it

as indisputable. Stark's true forte was not travelling or writing at all - however capable

she had demonstrated herself at both - but politics - the politics of self.

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CONCLUSION

A reading of Freya Stark's four autobiographical books impressed me initially by her failure to satisfactorily account for herself as a successful writer and explorer. Her biographers suceeded no better, because diey had all based their work upon her own autobiographical interpretations. She was both a highly successful and an influential woman, despite having had a troubled beginning in life and I have filled in some of the gaps and answered some questions about die origin and nature of the fame surrounding Stark as a writer, explorer and titled woman.

A glance at the Chronology of her life reveals that it was complex. I have established that she was discontented and dissatisfied as a young woman, and failed to follow through any of the possible directions which she chose - neither university, nursing, market gardening nor writing succeeded in holding her attention for long. She also failed to marry, despite an apparent embarrassment of possible suitors, none of whom actually got to the point of marrying her. She did however learn Arabic sporadically, despite failing to pursue her studies to the projected diploma level at the School of Oriental Studies in London, and rejecting an opportunity of teaching English in Egypt after those studies. 1 concluded that most of her failure to commit herself to any course in life was the result of an unusually close relationship with her mother, on whom she depended and would have liked to depend more. Conversely her mother appeared much less concerned about Stark, and curiously, neither woman seemed much to like the other.

It was the relationship with her mother which caused serious tensions in Stark and resulted in sickness. 1 have established that the degree of her sickness was always exaggerated. She accepted only much later in life something which was apparent to others at the time, that an operation for digestive troubles in 1924 had been unnecessary. Her mother was never interested in caring for her and had used nannies or family friends freely as substitutes in her infancy. Herbert Young acts in place of her father and it is pointed out that the relationship, including considerable intimacy and photography, was linked with disturbance in Stark. She never matured: she was cared for over lengthy periods of time by friends, before and between her travels. Imagined sickness impelled her into travel, largely, it seems to impress her mother, and in the hope of finding a husband, and the rewards of travelling ensured that she continued to explore.

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Stark studied Arabic as a distraction from market gardening, especially when she fancied herself sick, and to relieve her of the tensions of living with a mother whose fortune was tied up in her son-in-law's business. However, Stark's letters cast doubt upon the reality of this burden. Her physical stamina was superior and regardless of her sickness, she performed some rare mountaineering feats.

Despite travelling to Syria, Iraq, Persia and Southern Arabia to practice languages, to explore, and to relieve family tensions, Stark apparently fell gravely ill on a number of occasions. She was rescued from the valleys of the Hadhramaut in spectacular circumstances, suffering from measles and a "dilated" heart. On another occasion she was gravely ill and almost died of "malaria". However, her writings reveal a contradictory tale and her diagnoses of dramatic sickness were never confirmed and often contradicted by the medical profession. Her illnesses did not prevent her from recovering with impressive speed, to perform remarkable physical feats like mountain climbing. These exploits would have been unthinkable had she been as ill with organic heart disease or malaria as she presented herself. Some doubtful diagnosis, followed by over-zealous medication may have been responsible for most of her sickness in Persia and Southern Arabia. She then confused the symptoms of over-dosage with quinine and heart stimulants with those of heart disease. The over-medication is presumed to have been accidental. She suffered no permanent ill effects, and her sickness ensured that a variety of people cared for her in a handsome and indeed luxurious manner.

The publicity surrounding her exploits resulted in considerable media attention and the award of prestigious medals. She became known to many influential people in the Middle East, and particularly to those directing British military policy. She met government Ministers, stayed with society hostesses, and Royalty invited her to dine. She had a reputation for being a lone and intrepid woman explorer, with no support from others, travelling on a small budget, yet other explorers tended to slight her achievements. This could have been die result of lack of generosity towards the achievements of a woman but I found that her expeditions were of such brief duration in general, as barely to count as explorations at all. The vision of her as a lone explorer was shattered by the number of people she mentioned as being involved in assisting her with the planning, preparation and even the execution of her travels. She could be defined as an adventurer. The medals were the result of capturing the attention of men of influence who were in a position to recommend her exploits to the Royal Geographical Society and other exploration societies.

She wrote a number of successful travel books which received considerable publicity, due

107

in part to prominent reviews by prestigious journals. Her fine writing was admired,

though many quarrelled with her naive politics and her anti-Zionism. She was unable to

retain the attention of the public in quite the same way after the Second World War,

when interest in that kind of travel was extinguished. No one, including Stark, was

particularly interested in modem Turkey, so she concentrated on recreating historical

travels. Although she lacked a classical education and the ability to read classical Greek

sources, she performed some creditable feats of research and synthesis, which were

insufficiently appreciated: she was felt to have turned away from the kind of travel writing

to which she was most suited. She herself always believed that her letters were her finest

monument. They are fascinating documents, but often concerned with the trivial.

Though fluently written, their style is not always remarkable and John Murray was

substantially correct in his estimation of them, so that she was obliged to find a small

specialist publisher. However, as a human document, they are unrivalled. The tale they

tell of Stark's family life and exactly how she gained her reputation, is infinitely absorbing.

I compared her travel writing with that of Charles Doughty, Gertrude Bell, T.E.

Lawrence, and incidentally, with that of a rival expeditioner, Gertrude Caton Thompson.

All except Caton Thompson, a scientific report writer, are fine stylists. Stark not only

compares favourably with these well-known travel writers, but at her best, exceeds them.

Her travel books, not her letters, are her finest monument.

In view of the interest provoked by Edward Said in the notion of Western attitudes

towards the East, I devoted three chapters to an exploration of Stark's attitudes towards

the Arabs. Inevitably, she remained "Eurocentric" at heart. However, the passages I

selected for comparison in Doughty, Bell, T.E. Lawrence and Stark reveal why the two

women were regarded as having a special understanding of the Arab mind. Both

expressed ready sympathy with the Arabs whom they met on their travels, while Doughty

and T.E. Lawrence, at least in the passages I selected, saw them as mere foils, centering

the action upon themselves.

My concluding chapter represents my own understanding of Freya Stark as an explorer.

One very particular question I pursued was exactly who had aided Stark on her

explorations and why. The answer was lengthy, involving many influential people, often

in government service. The aid was practical - where to go, what to do and how to do it.

They often had access to resources and they did some of the organizing for her. They

admired her courage. I felt diat her medals and awards were in the form of thanks for the

maps which she had produced of areas of N.W. Persia, and for the information about

tribal loyalties in Southern Arabia.

108

Reviews were always highly favourable of her work, and they were used to ratify her

position as authoritative on the areas in which she travelled. Male explorers were

substantially correct in their estimation: she did call upon taxis in remote areas when she

fancied herself sick; she did not scruple to demand air rescue when she felt it appropriate.

All of her travels were brief. Her reputation was, it seems, based on the British desire to

know more about certain areas - the N.W. of Persia and die Hadhramaut area of Southern

Arabia. They established her reputation, which was consequently somewhat unmerited.

As a woman, she did not apparently qualify for permanent employment, but equally she

could be provided with paternalistic support, which she used to the full. Her T .L .S .

reviews were used to disseminate government policy on the areas where she travelled.

Good prominent reviews of her books, assistance by the Royal Geographical Society

during her travels, and her medals and honorary university degrees, were, it seemed to me,

rewards in kind.

Drawing upon material contained in her own published letters, I discovered some

startlingly different perspectives on Stark's personality. Gone was the woman who would

not leave her tent, pursued by a large insect, until she had put on her "boudoir cap".

Gone too was the elderly lady who worried about propriety and chaperonage. 1 concluded

that they were all smoke screens, designed to conceal Freya Stark's enigmatic character,

even at times from herself. I found that she no more understood herself than she

understood the workings of anybody else's heart.

In her place was a headless spend-thrift, who from the first had gratefully accepted large

loans to pay for her houses or her extensive house repairs. 1 found an adventurer who

hated work and resented having to write for a living. I found a woman who fell out with

her only woman friend over a man, and also a woman who purportedly experienced idyllic

love affairs with men as audacious as herself: yet there is not much evidence diat this love

was ever, at any time, expressed physically - even in marriage. She was romantically

inclined - but often only in retrospect. The death of a good man inspired her to fantasies.

When she married in 1947, her swain, Stewart Perowne displayed an unbecoming dismay

at her voluminous, frilly trousseau. Perhaps she had, romantically, saved herself for

marriage, but the great love she desired was denied to her, even after so long a wait.

Whether ignorantly, innocently or by design, she had married a homosexual. She minded

very much that the marriage failed, but she is so full of contradictions that it is impossible

to say whether she minded Perowne's homosexuality. Izzard fancied that a lesbian

tendency was hidden, even from herself, but that is, I think, based on pure conjecture. 1

conclude that Perowne's failing career and lack of real prospects mattered more, and the

fact that they no longer shared the special camaraderie of working together. At the same

109

time, Stark had become a famous woman in her own right and had been for a long time.

Molly Izzard concludes that Stark had an artless innocence, but I tend to argue for a

woman who knew more than she thought was proper for an unmarried woman to reveal.

Despite Izzard's claims about Stark's first residence in Baghdad, Stark could certainly

recognize a prostitute when she saw one: "In spite of its charms, I do not think that our

street was really very respectable", she says of her rapidly abandoned first residence in

Baghdad. "The lady in the house next door, instead of being modestly enclosed in lattice

work, sat at her open window." (Baghdad Sketches: 39) They are not the words of a shy

and uncomprehending virgin, but of one who thoroughly appreciates and is amused by the

situation. She was always more pragmatic than people believed: the defective drains of

the area upset her far more than the defective morals of the woman next door, and led to

the Sanitary Inspector soon finding her a more respectable residence.

She was an egotistical woman and though she did not understand her own people, she

understood Arab people well enough, either male or female. She spoke their language

with increasing fluency. She travelled because she enjoyed certain aspects of it very

much: it supplied the subject matter for her books, and she became enchanted by the

notoriety which the combination of the two provided. She met many people of influence

as a result of her adventures. She would never have gained such pleasurable attention in

her market garden at Ventimiglia. It had its costs, and they were heavy. Men liked her,

but they didn't want to marry her. She was often lonely and insecure, prey to depression

and anxiety. However, her talents were a sufficiently rare combination to earn her the

opportunity, of which she made the most, to meet the kinds of people she liked best -

influential, worldly, rich. She also gained war-time employment. Even success could not

solve deep-rooted emotional problems, and her only attempt at marriage, late in life, was

an immediate failure. Everything else combined to make her a successful and highly

talented writer whose books are read to this day.

110

BIBLIOGRAPHY

WORKS BY FREYA STARK

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Traveller's Prelude. Autobiography 1893^1927. London: John Murray, 1950.

London: Century. 1983. First published

The Coast of Incense. Autobiography 1933-1939. London: John Murray. 1953.

Dust in the Lion's Paw. Autobiography 1939-1946. London: Century, 1985. First published John Murray. 1961.

Letters from Syria. London: John Munray. 1942.

LETTERS

Vol 1. The Furnace and the Cup. 1914-1930. Ed. Lucy Moorehead. Salisbury: Compton Russell. 1974.

Vol 2. The Open Door. 1930-1935. Ed. Lucy Moorehead. Salisbury: Compton Russell. 1975. ^

VoL 3. The Growth of Danger. 1935-1939. Ed. Lucy Moorehead. Salisbury: Compton Russell. 1976.

Vol. 4. Bridge of the Levant. 1940-1943. Ed. Lucy Moorehead. Salisbury: Michael Russell. 1977.

VoL 5. New Worlds for Old. 1943-1946. Ed. Lucy Moorehead. Salisbury: Michael Russell. 1978.

Vol.6. The Broken Road. 1947-1952. Ed. Lucy Moorehead. Salisbury: Michael Russell. 1981.

Vol. 7. Some Talk of Alexander. 1952-1959. Ed. Caroline Moorehead. Salisbury: Michael Russell. 1982.

Vol.8. Traveller's Epilogue. 1960-1980. Ed. Caroline Moorehead. Salisbury: Michael Russell. 1983.

Over the Rim of the World: Selected Letters of Freya Stark. Ed. Caroline Moorehead. London: John Murray in Association with Michael Russell. 1988.

Correspondence of Dame Freya Stark and Stewart Perowne with Sir Harry Luke. Special Collections. Australian Defence Force Academy Library.

Correspondence with Lady Astor. The University of Reading Library.

I l l

Correspondence with Mr Reginald Davies and Mrs G. Davies. The University of Edinburgh Library.

Correspondence widi Lady Currie. The City of London Polytechnic Library.

Letter from Freya Stark to Constance Babington-Smith. Trinity College, Cambridge, Library.

Catalogue of die Freya Stark Archive. Han^ Ranson Humanities Research Centre The University of Texas at Austin.

OTHER BOOKS BY FREYA STARK

The Valleys of the Assassins. London: John Murray. 1934.

Baghdad Sketches. London: John Munray. 1937. First published Baghdad. 1932.

A Winter in Arabia. London: John Murray. 1940.

The Southern Gates of Arabia: A Journey in the Hadramaut. London: John Murray. 1936.

Seen in the Hadhramaut. London: John Murray. 1938.

East is West. London: John Murray. 1945.

Perseus in the Wind. London: John Murray. 1948.

Ionia: A Quest. London: John Murray. 1954.

The Lycian Shore. London: John Murray. 1956.

Alexander's Path. London: John Murray. 1958.

Riding to the Tigris. London: John Murray. 1959.

The Journey's Echo: Selections from Freya Stark. Forward Lawrence Durrell. London: John Murray. 1963.

Rome on the Euphrates: The Story of a Frontier. London: John Murray. 1966.

Space, Time & Movement in Landscape by her Godson. 17 Ormond Yard. Salisbury: Compston Press. 1967.

The Minaret of Djam: An Excursion in Afghanistan. London: John Murray. 1970.

Turkey: A Sketch of Turkish History by Freya Stark. Photographs Fulvio Roiter. London: Thames & Hudson. 1971.

A Peak in Darien. London: John Murray. 1976.

Rivers of Time Photographs Dame Freya Stark. Introduction Alexander Maitland. Edinburgh: William Blackwood. 1982.

112

ARTICLES BY FREYA STARK

"A Journey to the Hadhramaut. I". Geographical Magazine, (hereafter G.M.j 3. 1936. 1-6.

"A Journey to the Hadhramaut. 11" G.M. 4. 1936-1937. 107-125.

"A Journey to die Hadhramaut. III". G.M. 4. 1936-1937. 35-51.

"Kuwait". G.M. 5. 1937. 385-398.

"People of die Hadhramaut. I". G.M. 8. 1938. 87-96.

"People of die Hadhramaut. 11". G.M. 8. 1939. 177-186.

"Castles in Syria II Moslem." G.M. 10. 1940. 336-341.

"The Coast below Cyrene". G.M. 23.1950. 342-349.

"The Philosophy of Travel". Spectator. 184. 1950. 366-367.

"Solitude and Patriotism". Comhill. 1000. 1954. pp 355-360.

"Alexander's Minor Campaigns in Turkey". Geographical Joumal(G.J.). Vol 122. 1956. 294-305.

"Alexanders's March from Miletus to Phrygia". Journal of Hellenic Studies. Vol 78. 1958. 102-120.

"Landscapes in Caria I. G.J. 124. 1958. 30-34.

"Undscapes in Caria 11. G.J. 124. 1958. 340-346.

"The Yezidi Devil-Worshippers". G.M. 30. 1958. 527-537.

"A Journey in Kurdistan". G.M. 32. 1959-60. 284-289.

"Around Tunisia". G.M. 33. 1960-1961. 706-714.

"Memorable Meals". No 3. G.M. 37. 1964. 61.

REVIEWS OF HER WORK.

The Valleys of the Assassins. Times Literary Supplement, (hereafter T.L.S.) 1934. 369.

The Southern Gates of Arabia. A Journey in the Hadhramaut. "On the Ancient Incense Road Adventures in Southern Arabia." T.L.S. 1936. 447.

Baghdad Sketches. "Baghdad Sketches". T.L.S. 1937.791.

Seen in the Hadhramaut. "With a Camera in Arabia. Pictures of an Ancient World." T.L.S. 1938. 811.

A Winter in Arabia."By Air and Camel Caravan Miss Freya Stark in Arabia." T.L.S. 1940. 318.

113

Letters from Syria. "Letters from Syria". T.L.S. 1942. 477.

East is West. "Change in the Arab World." T.L.S. 1945. 435.

Perseus in the Wind. T.L.S. 1948. 684.

Traveller's Prelude. ''Alps and Sanctuary". T.L.S. 1950. 630.

Traveller's Prelude. "A Letter to Freya Stark". V. Sackville^West. Spectator, 185. 1950.

Traveller's Prelude. Janet Adam Smith. New Statesman and Nation. Vol. 40. 1950. 406.

Beyond Euphrates^. "A Traveller's Autobiography". V. Sackville-West. Spectator. 187.

Beyond Euphrates. "The World in Books". Ivy Davison. G.M. 24. 1951. xiv.

Beyond Euphrates: Autobiography 1928^1933. "Nourishment Shared". T.L.S. 1951. 659.

Traveller's Prelude. D.M. G.J. 118. 1952. 90-91.

Beyond Euphrates. D.M. G.J. 118.1952.90-91.

TheCoastof Incense: Autobiography 1933-1939. "Desert Prose". Peter Green. Spectator. 191. 1953. 516-517.

TheCoastof Incense: Autobiography 1933-1939. "To the Arabian Soudi". T.L.S. 1953. 605-606.

The Coast of Incense. D.M. G.J. 120. 1954. 110-111.

Ionia: A Quest V.S. Pritchett. New Statesman and Nation. Vol ^8. 1954. 442-443.

Ionia: A Quest. "A Country in Equipoise". T.L.S. 1954.658.

Ionia: A Quest. "Anatolian Travel". W.D.Allen. G.J. 121.1955.91-93.

The Lycian Shore. "Turkish Odyssey". P.H.Davis. G.J. 122. 1956. 495-497.

The Lycian Shore. David Stone. The Spectator. Vol 197. 1956. 33-34.

The Lycian Shore. "Time and Motion". T.L.S. 1956. 267.

Alexander's Path: From Caria to Cilicia. Simon Raven. The Spectator. Vol. 201. 1958. 525.

Alexander's Path. "Land of Alexander and Ataturk". T.L.S. 1958.607.

Riding to the Tigris. "Ends of the Earth". Bernard Bergonzi. Spectator. 203. 1959. 942.

Alexander's Path. "Asia". G.A. Langdon. G.J. 125. 1959. 104.

Riding to the Tigris. "Traveller from an Antique Land". T.L.S. 1959. 707.

Riding to the Tigris. P.E. Davis. G.J. 126. 1960. 218-219.

114

Dust in the Lion's Paw. "The Persuasive Voice". T.L.S. 1961.781-782.

Dust in the Lion's Paw. "Sweet Persuasion". Simon Raveri. Spectator. 207. 1961. 512-513,

Dust in the Lion's Paw. L Collier. G.J. 128. 1962. 216-217.

The Journey's Echo. N.T. G.J. 130. 1964. 165.

Rome on tl^ Euphrates. "Frontier Problems". William Buchan. Spectator. 217. 1966. 558-

Rome on the Euphrates: The Story of a Frontier. "On the Frontier". T.L.S. 1966. 1057-1058.

Rome on the Euphrates. M.C. Gillett. G.J. 133. 1967. 252-253.

The Zodiac Arch. G.M. G.J. 134.1968. 602.

The Minaret of Djam. "High up in Afghanistan". T.L.S. 1970. 1426.

TheMinaretofDjam. Dorothy Middleton. G.M. 43. 1970. 234.

Space, Time and Movement in Landscape. (Her Godson). "Shorter Notices". Spectator. 224.1970. 22.

Space, Time and Movement in Landscape. "Waters of the Nile." T.L.S. 1970. 29.

Turkey. Photographs Fulvio Roiter. "Turkey Trots". T.L.S. 1971.342.

Turkey. "Turkey's history with pictures". William C. Brice. G. M. 43. 1971. 593.

TheMinaretofDjam. "To Afghanistan widi Freya Stark". J.B.A. G.J. 138. 1972. 102.

Letters. Vol 1. "Traveller's Prelude". Elizabedi Monroe. T.L.S. 1975. 137.

Letters. Vol 1. Gerald de Gaury. G.J. 141. 1975. 297-298.

APeakinDarien. "Travelling On". Gillian Goodwin. T.L.S. 1976.861.

Letters. Vol 2. 1930-35. The Open Door. Ed. Lucy Moorehead. "Middle of the Journey." Elizabeth Monroe. T.L.S. 1976. 169.

Letters. Vol 2. The Open Door, 1930-35. Dorothy Middleton. G.J. 142. 1976.536.

Letters. Vol 3. The Growth of Danger. Dorothy Middleton. G.J. 143. 1977. 120.

APeakinDarien. Dorothy Middleton. G J . 143. 1977. 120.

Letters. Vol 4. Bridge of the Uvant. 1940-43. DM. G.J. 144.1978. 512.

Letters Vol 8. Travellers'Epilogue. Ed. C. Moorehead, Patrick Leigh Fermor. T.L.S. 1983. 434.

115

BOOKS ABOUT FREYA STARK

Maitland, Alexander. A Tower in a Wall Edinburgh, Blackwood. 1982.

Moorehead, Caroline. Freya Stark. Lives of Modern Women. Harmondsworth: Peneuin. 1985. ^

Ruthven, Malise. Traveller Through Time: A Photographic Journey with Freya Stark. Harmondswordi: Viking. 1986.

Izzard, Molly. Freya Stark: A Biography. London: Hodder & Stoughton. 1993.

GENERAL WORKS

Adams, Percy, G. Travel Literature and the Evolution of the Novel. Kentucky: The University Press. 1983.

Aldington, Richard. The Colonel's Daughter. New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co. 1931.

Aldington, Richard. Lawrence of Arabia: A Bibliographical Enquiry. London: Collins. 1955.

Aldington, Richard & Durrell, Lawrence. Literary Lifelines: The Richard Aldington-Lawrence Durrell Correspondence. Ed. Ian MacNiven and Harry Moore. London Faber & Faber. 1981.

Ashcroft, B. Griffiths, G. Tiffin, H. The Empire Writes Back. London: Routledge. 1989.

Atherton, John. "The Itinerary and the Postcard: Minimal Strategies in 'The Sun Also Rises'." English Literary History. 53.1986. 199-218.

Bailey, Susan F. Women of the British Empire: An Annotated Guide to Sources. New York & London: Garland. 1983.

Bair, Deirdre. Simone de Beauvoir. London: Jonathan Cape. 1990.

Bamm, Peter. Alexander the Great: Power as Destiny. London: Thames & Hudson. 1968.

Barr, Pat. A Curious Life for a Lady. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 1985. First published Macmillan & John Murray, 1970.

Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. Selected and translated from the French. Annette Lavers. London: Jonathan Cape. 1972.

Bedford, Sybille. Jigsaw: An Unsentimental Education A Biographical Novel. Harmondsworth: London. 1990. First published Hamish Hamilton, 1989.

Beeton, Cecil. Near East. London: Batsford. 1943.

Bell, Sir Gawain Shadows on the Sand: The Memoirs of Sir Gawain Bell. New York: St Martins, London: Hurst. 1983.

116

Bell, Gertrude. The Letters of Gertrude Bell Vols. 1 & 2. Selected and Ed. Lady Bell, D.B.E. London: Ernest Benn Ltd. 1927.

Bell, Gertrude. The Desert and the Sown. Intro. Sarah Graham-Brown. London: Virago. 1985. First published Heinemann, 1907.

Bell, Gertrude. Amurath to Amurath. London : Macmillan. 1924. First published, 1911.

Benstock, Shari. Ed. The Private Self: Theory and Practice of Women's Autobiographical Writings. Chapel Hill & London: The University of Carolina Press. 1988.

Bieber, Konrad. Simone de Beauvoir. Boston: Twayne. 1979.

Birkett, Dea. Spinsters Abroad: Victorian Lady Explorers. London: Victor Gollancz. 1991. First published Blackwell, 1979.

Bishop, Peter. The Myth of Shangri-La: Tibet, Travel Writing and the Western Creation of Sacred Landscape. London: The Athlone Press. 1989.

Bishop, Peter. "Travellers in Imaginary Landscapes". Meridian. 3.1984. 153-157.

Blake, Susan L. "A Woman's Trek What Difference Does Gender Make? 19-34. p. 20, in Napur Chaudhuri and Margaret Strobel. Eds. Western Women and Imperialism: Complicity and Resistance. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. 1992.

Blunt, Wilfrid. Cockerell. London: Hamish Hamilton. 1964.

Brittain, Vera. Testament of Youth: An Autobiographical Study of the Years 1900-1925. Preface Rt. Hon. Shirley Williams. London: Gollancz. 1978. First Published 1933.

Brodzki, B. & Schenk, C. Eds. Life/Lines: Theorizing Women's Autobiography. Ithaka & London: Cornell University. 1988.

Brown, Malcolm. Selector & Ed. The Letters of T. E. Lawrence. London: Dent. 1988.

Buchan, James. "Is Your Travel Book Necessary?" Spectator. 1990.22-23.

Burgoyne, Elizabeth. Gertrude Bell: From Her Personal Papers. 2 Vols. London: Ernest Benn. 1958.

Butler, David. Lord Mountbatten: The Last Viceroy. London: Methuen. 1985.

Byron, Robert. First Russia then Tibet. London: Macmillan. 1933.

Byron, Robert. The Road to Oxiana. London: Macmillan. 1937

Cable, Mildred with Francesca French. The Gobi Desert. London: Hodder & Stoughton. 1947. First published 1942.

The Cambridge History of Islam. P.M. Holt, A.K.S. Lambton, B. Lewis. 2 Vols. Cambridge: University Press. 1970.

117

Chaudhuri, Napur & Margaret Strobel. Western Women and Imperialism: Complicity and Resistance. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. 1992.

Chitty, Susan (SiHinde, Thomas. The Great Donkey Walk. London; Hodder & Stoughton. 1977.

Chodorow. N. Fermnism and Psychonalytic Theory. London: Blackwell. Yale University Press. 1989. '

Clark, Anne. Lewis Carroll: A Biography. New York. Schoken Books. 1979.

Coats, Peter. O/Generals a ^ The Autobiography of Peter Coats. London: Weidenfeld&Nicolson. 1976.

Cockshut. A.q.J . The Art of Autobiography in 19th and 20th Century England. Newhaven & London: Yale University. 1984.

Connolly, Cyril. The Rock Pool. Oxford: University Press. 1981.

Cooper, Artemis. Ed. A Durable Fire: The Letters of Duff and Diana Cooper 1913-1950. London: Hamish Hamilton. 1983.

Cooper, Artemis. Cairo in the War 1939-1945. London: Hamish Hamilton. 1989.

Cooper, Diana. The Rainbow Comes and Goes. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 1961.

Coward, Noel. Middle East Diary. London: Heinemann. 1944.

CunQyEvQ. Journey Among Warriors. London: Heinemann. 1943.

Curzon, Robert. Visits to The Monasteries of the Levant. Fifth Edition. London: John Murray. 1865.

David'Neel, Alexandra. Voyage d'une Parisienne a Lhasa. Paris: Plon. 1983. First published 1927.

Davidson, Cathy N. & Broner, E. M. Eds. The Lost Tradition: Mothers and Daughters in Literature. New York: Frederick Ungar. 1980.

Dawson, Carl. Prophets of Past Time: Seven British Autobiographers, 1880-1914. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. 1988.

De Gaury, Gerald. Arabia Felix: An account of a visit to Ibn Saud Chieftain of the Austere Wahabis and Powerful Arabian King. Foreward Freya Stark. London: Harrap & Co. 1946.

De Gaury, Gerald. Faisal King of Saudi Arabia. London: Arthur Barker. 1966.

De Gaury, Gerald. Traces of Travel Brought Home from Abroad. London: Quartet. 1983.

Dineson, Isak. Letters from Africa. 1914-1931. Tr. Anne Bom. London: Pan. 1983. First published Rungstedlund Foundation. 1978.

Donovan, Josephine. Feminist Literary Criticism: Expbrations in Theory. Lexington: The University of Kentucky Press. Second Edition. 1989.

118

Doughty, Charles M. Travels in Arabia Deserta. 2 Vols. London: Jonathan Cape. 1936. First published Cambridge University Press. 1888.

Doughty, Charles M. Wanderings in Arabia: Being an Abridgment of "Travels in Arabia Deserta". Arr. with Intro. Edward Gamett. In two Vols. London: Duckworth. 1908.

Doughty, Charles M. Travels in Arabia Deserta: New and definitive edition. Two Vols, in one. Introduction T. E. Lawrence. New York: Random House. 1921.

Dostoevsky. Notes from Underground. The Double. Tr. Jessie Coulson. Penguin: Harmondsworth. 1972.

Durrell, Lawrence. Reflections on a Marine Venus. London: Faber & Faber. 1960. First published 1953.

Durrell, Lawrence. Prospero's Cell. London: Faber & Faber. 1962. First published 1955.

Durrell, Lawrence. Bitter Lemons. London: Faber & Faber. 1959. First published 1957.

Durrell, Lawrence. Spirit of Place. London: Faber & Faber. Ed. Alan 0 . Thomas. 1971. First published 1969.

Ebener, Charlotte. No Facilities for Women. London: Seeker and Warburg. 1955.

Eggert, Paul. "D.H. Lawrence and the Crucifixes". Bulletin of Research in the Humanities. 86. 1983. 67-85.

Eggert, Paul. "The Real Esther Summerson". Dickens Studies Newsletter. Vol XI. No 3. 1980. 74-81.

Eggert, Paul. "Real of Imaginary Encounters in The Travel Book The Case of D.H. Lawrence." Studies in Prose Literature. Ed. Joy Hooton. English Department. Faculty of Military Studies, Duntroon. Occasional Paper, No. 5. 1985. 20-33.

Elliott, Robert C. The Literary Persona. Chicago: University of Chicago. 1982.

Fedden, Robin. Syria: An Historical Appreciation. London: Robert Hale. 1946.

Fedden, Robin. English Travelers in the Near East. Writers and Their Work. No 97. Published for the British Council and the National Book League. Longmans, Green & Co. London. 1958.

Fetterley, Judith. The Resisting Reader: A Feminist Approach to American Fiction. Bloomington & London: Indiana University Press, c.1978.

Fleming, Peter. One's Company: A Journey to China. London: Jonathan Cape. 1943.

Forster. E.M. A Passage to India. London: Harmonsworth. 1979. First published Edward Arnold. 1924.

Forster, E.M. Hou/arJ's Emf. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 1950. First published 1910.

Forster, E.M. Where Angels Fear to Tread. London: Edward Arnold & Co. 1947.

119

Fox, Robin Lane. Alexander the Great. London: Allen Lane in association with Longman. 1973.

Fox.RobmUne. The Search for Alexander. Boston & Toronto: Little, Brown & Co.

Fussell, Paul. Abroad: British Literary Traveling Between the Wars. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1980.

Gamett David. Selector. The Essential T.E. Lawrence. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 1956. First published 1951.

Gamett, David. Ed. The Letters of T.E. Lawrence. London: Jonadian Cape. 1938.

Gide, Andre. If I Die.. .Tr. Dorodiy Bussy. Penguin Books in Assoc with Martin Seeker & Warburg. 1987. First published 1920.

Gide, Andre. JouTTials 1889-1949. Tr. Selected & Ed. Justin O'Brien. Harmondswordi: Penguin. 1967. First published 1947-57.

Glubb, John. Arabian Adventures. London: Cassell. 1978.

Goff, Clare. An Archaeobgist in the Making: Six Seasons in Iran. London: Constable. 1980.

Graves, Richard Perceval. Lawrence of Arabia and his World. New York: Charles Scribner's. 1976.

Graves, Robert. Goodbye to All That. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 1960. First published Jonathan Cape: 1929.

Green, Peter. Alexander the Great. London: WeidenfeId & Nicolson. 1970.

Grove, Valerie. The Compleat Woman: Marriage, Motherhood, Career: Can She Have All! London: Chatto & Windus. 1987.

Grimble, Arthur. A Pattern of Islands. London: John Murray. School Edition. 1955. First published 1952.

Halliday, F. Arabia Without Sultans. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 1974.

Hamer, James L. Literary Research Guide: A Guide to Reference Sources for the Study of Literatures in English and Related Topics. New York: M.LA. 1989.

Hedin, Sven. Trans-Himalaya: Discoveries and Adventures in Tibet. Two Vols. London: Macmillan. 1909.

Helfritz, H. The Yemen: A Secret Journey. Tr. M. Heron. London: Allen & Unwin. 1958. First published German. 1956.

Hooton, Joy. Stories of Herself When Young: Autobiographies of Childhood by Australian Women. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, Australia. 1990.

Hopwood, Derek. Tales of Empire: The British in the Middle East 1880-1952. London:Tauris. 1989.

120

Hore-Ruthven, Patrick. Joy of Youth: Letters of Patrick Hore^Ruthven. Ed. Ethel Anderson. London: Peter Davies. 1950.

Hourani,^A|bert. Islam in European Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hyman Susan. Compiler & Ed. Edward Lear in the Levant: Travels in Albania, Greece and Turkey in Europe, 1848''1849. 1988.

Iser, Wolfgang. The ImpUed Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett. Baltimore & London: John Hopkins University Press. 1974.

Iser, Wolfgang. The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response. London: Routledge & KeganPauL 1978. First published German. 1976.

Izzard, Molly. A Private Life. London: Faber. 1963.

Izzard, Molly. The Gulf: Arabia's Western Approaches. London: Murray. 1979.

Izzard, Molly. Freya Stark: A Biography. London: Hodder & Stoughton. 1993.

Izzard, Molly. "A hundred years of wanderlust". The Observer. 31 January, 1993. 51.

Jelinek, Estelle, C. The Tradition of Women's Autobiographies. U.M.I. Dissertation Service. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International. 1977.

Jelinek, Estelle, C. The Tradition of Women's Autobiography: From Antiquity to the Present. Boston: Twayne Publishers. 1986.

Kaplan, Deborah. "Representing Two Cultures: Jane Austen's Letters", in Shari Benstock. Ed. The Private Self: Theory and Practice of Women's autobiographical writings. Chapel Hill & London: University ofNordi Carolina Press. 1988. 211-229.

Kaulback, Ronald. Tibetan Trek. London: Hodder & Stoughton. 1937.

Keay, Julia. With Passport and Parasol. London: B.B.C. Books. 1989.

Keefe, Terry. Simone de Beauvoir: A Study of her Writings. London: Harrap. 1983.

Killeam, Lord. (Sir Miles Lampson) The Killeam Diaries 1934-1946. Ed. & Introduced by Trefor E. Evans. London: Sidgwick. 1972.

Landow, G.P. Ed. Approaches to Victorian Autobiography. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press. 1979.

Lawrence, T.E. The Essential T.E. Lawrence. Selected with a preface by David Gamett. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 1956. First Published Jonathan Cape. 1951.

Lawrence, T.E. The Letters of T.E. Lawrence. Ed. David Gamett. London: Jonathan Cape. 1938.

Lawrence, T.E. The Letters of T.E. Lawrence. Selected and Ed. Malcolm Brown. London: Dent. 1988.

121

Layard, Sir, A. Henry. Early Adventures in Persia, Susiarvi, and Babylonia. New Edition. Famborough: Gregg International. 1971. First published John Murray. 1894.

Lejeune, Philippe. On Autobiography. (Theory and History of Literature. Vol. 52.) Translated by Katherine Leary. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Levi, Peter. The Light Garden of the Angel King: Journeys in Afghanistan, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Revised Edition. 1984. First published Collins. 1972.

Lipsius, Frank. Alexander the Great. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. 1974.

Lowe, Lisa. Critical Terrains: French and British Orientalisms. Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press. 1991.

Lodge, David. Modem Criticism and Theory: A Reader. London & New York: Longman. 1988.

Luke, Sir Harry. An Eastern Checkerboard. London: Lovat Dickson. 1934.

Luke, Sir Harry. Cities and Men: An Autobiography The First Thirty Years 1884-1914. London: Geoffrey Bles. 1953.

Luke, Sir Harry. Cities and Men: An Autobiography Volume III Work and Travel in All Continents 1924-1954. London: Geoffrey Bles. 1956.

Main, Ernest. Iraq From Mandate to Independence. London: George Allen & Unwin. 1935.

Mallowan, Agatha Christie. Come Tell Me How You Live. London: Bodley Head. 1983.

Maugham, Robin. Nomad. London: Chapman Hall. 1947.

Mandel, John Barrett. "Hie Autobiographer's Art". Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. 27. 1986. 215-226.

Mariano, Nicky. Forty Years with Berenson. London: Hamish Hamilton. 1966.

Martineau, Harriet. Autobiography. Two Vols. Famborough: Gregg International. 1969. Reprint of Third Edition. London: Smith, Elder. 1877.

McCarthy, Mary. Memories of a Catholic Girlhood. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 1957.

Melman, Billie. Women's Orients: English Women and the Middle East, 1718-1918.

Sexuality, Religion and Work. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 1992.

Middle ton, Dorothy. Victorian Lady Travellers. New York: Dutton. 1965.

Milns, R.D. Alexander the Great. London: Robert Hale. 1968. Moffat, Mary Jane & Painter, C. Eds. Revelations: Diaries of Women. New York: Vintage

Books. 1974.

122

Monroe. Elizabeth. Philby of Arabia. London: Quartet. 1980. First published Faber & Faber. 1973.

Moon, Penderel. Ed. Wavell: The Viceroy's Journal London: Oxford U.P. 1973.

Mooreheai Alan. African Trilogy. London: Hamish Hamilton. 1965. First published

Moorehead, Alan. The White Nile. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. 1971 First published 1960.

Newman, John Henry Cardinal. Apologia Pro Vita Sua: being a history of his reU^ous opinions. London: Sheed & Ward. 1946.

Newton K.M. Interpreting the Text: A Critical Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Literary Interpretation. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatwheaf. 1990.

Nice, Vivien E. Mothers & Daughters: The Distortion of a Relationship. Basingstoke & London: Macmillan. 1992.

Nicolson, H. Diaries and Letters: Vol I. 1930-9. London: Fontana. 1969. First published 1966.

Norris, Christopher. Contest of Faculties: Philosophy and Theory after Deconstruction. London & New York: Methuen. 1985.

Pascal, Roy. Design and Truth in Autobiography. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 1960.

Powell, Anthony. What's Become of Waring. Fontana. Glasgow: Collins. First published Cassell. 1939.

Pocock, Tom. Alan Moorhead. London: The Bodley Head. 1990.

Pratt, Mary Louise. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transcidturation. London and New York. Routledge. 1992.

Praz, Mario. The Romantic Agony. Oxford: University Press. 1970. First published 1933.

Ruthven, Malise. Traveller Through Time: A Photographic Journey with Freya Stark. Harmondsworth: Viking. 1986.

Robinson, Jane. Wayward Women: A Guide to Women Travellers. Oxford: University Press. 1990.

Said, Edward, W. Joseph Conrad and the Fiction of Autobiography. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. 1966.

Said, Edward, W. Orientalism. London: Routledge Kegan Paul. 1978.

Said, Edward, W. Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World. New York: Pandieon. 1981.

Sanders, Valerie. Reason Over Passion: Harriet Martineau and the Victorian Novel Sussex: Harvester. 1986.

123

Scheman, Naomi. "Missing Mothers/Desiring Daughters: Framing the Sight of Women." Critical Enquiry. 15. 1988-89. 62-89.

Schwarzer, Alice. After the Second Sex: Conversations with Simone de Beauvoir, New York-Pantheon Books. 1984.

Searight, Sarah. The British in the Middle East. London & the Hague: East-West Publications. 1979.

Shumaker, Wayne. English Autobiography: Its Emergence, Material and Form. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press. (California, University Publications. English Studies 8). 1954.

Skinner, M.L. The Fifth Sparrow: An autobiography with a foreward by M. Durack. Sydney: Sydney University Press. 1972.

Smith, Sidonie. A Poetics of Women's Autobiography: Marginality and the Fictions of Self-Representation. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. 1987.

Spacks, Patricia Meyer. Imagining a Self: Autobiography and Novel in Eighteenth Century-England. Cambridge, Mass & London: Harvard University Press. 1976.

Spurling, Hilary. Ivy: The Life of Ivy Compton-Bumett. New York: Alfred Knopf. 1984.

Stanhope, Lady Hester. The Life and Letters of Lady Hester Stanhope. London: John Murray. 1914.

Stanton, Domna. Ed. The Female Autograph: Theory and Practice of Autobiography from the Tenth to the Twentieth Century. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press. 1987.

Steele, Peter. The Autobiographical Passion: Studies in the Self on Show. Melbourne: University Press. 1989.

Stevenson, Catherine. Victorian Women Travel Writers in Africa. Boston: Twayne. 1982.

Stevenson, R.L. Travels with a Donkey. London: Dent. 1967.

Stimpson, Catharine R. Where die Meanings Are: Feminism and Cultural Spaces. London & New York: Methuen. 1988.

Strouse, Jean. Alice James: A Biography. London: Jonathan Cape. 1981.

Sykes, Percy Molesworth. Ten Thousand Miles in Persia or Eight Years in Iran. London: John Murray. 1902.

Tabachnick, Stephen E. Ed. Explorations in Doughty's Arabia Deserta. Athens, Georgia: The University of Georgia Press. 1987.

Thesiger, Wilfrid. Arabian Sands. London: Collins. 1983. First published Longmans, Green and Co. Ltd. 1959.

Thompson, Gertrude Caton. Mixed Memoirs. Gateshead: Paradigm Press. 1983.

124

Thuhron, Colin. Journey into Cyprus. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 1986. First published Heinemann. 1975.

Tinling, Marion. Women into the Unknown: A Sourcebook on Women Explorers and Travellers, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. 1989.

Todd. JaneL Women's Friendship in Literature. New York: Cambridge University Press.

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Trollope, Joanna. Britannia's Daughters: Women of the British Empire. London: Hutchinson. 1983.

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APPENDIX 1

BIOGRAPHICAL PUZZLES AND THE ENIGMATIC EREYA STARK

Freya Stark had a number of significant relationships which her early biographers have dealt with, if at all, in a cursory manner. I have enlarged upon some of these, both to complete biographical information and also to establish whether certain contradictions in Stark's character can be resolved.

Stark did not have sufficient money in Baghdad in 1932 to pay for her travelling expenses. She had never enjoyed solitary travel and she therefore found male companionship both useful and desirable. However, the presence of male companions led not only to gossip, which she certainly resented, but also to flurries of agitation in Stark herself and batteries of earnest and moralistic letters to her mother and Buddicom if ever she received unwelcome attentions. One would expect an apparently worldly woman of nearly forty, who could shrug off gossip, to be quite capable of coping with the hazards of being a single woman. Her attitude is difficult to credit and leads her readers to one of two conclusions -either that she was hopelessly naive, or that she was a thoroughly worldly woman who played at being an innocent. Evidence is conflicting and so was her behaviour, suggesting that sexual conflict lay at the centre in Stark's own character. An examination of several of her recorded relationships with men follows, in an effort to establish her true status.

Judge Eric Maxwell of Baghdad

"Eric Maxwell is going to take me to Persia for a week on Thursday, all being well...He is

teaching me to drive..." (Letters II: 95), was the comment about one travel companion in

August, 1932. Maxwell was a family friend, of mature years, married, and a judge in

Baghdad. Stark said: "how trying a honeymoon must be when there is no one to be

annoyed with but an uncomprehending man whom one feels one ought to be nice

to...Providence...has spared me (and him) this experience". (Letters II: 96) Marriage was,

we infer, in her mind and only possibly in his. The sentiments expressed indicate that

Stark's own mind was in turmoil, and that whatever her emotional problem, it was not the

"uncomprehending" Maxwell's fault.

However, she was more explicit with her her mother and revealed that he had made

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unwanted sexual overtures to her. She expresses the idea, first articulated about a prospective fiance, Gabriel de Bottini, and still later, about Perowne, that men had an undiscriminating attitude towards women:

Eric is beginning to become sensible again...he must have some woman -1 really don't think it much matters who it is. I find myself with mid-Victorian ideas of morality, and no one to share them widi except C H . , [Captain Holt], who persists in thinking me fast and modem. And Eric has been suggesting travelling together to Bokhara and Samarkand. He says he has never met anyone so virtuous as me. A pity one gets no credit for it. (Letters II: 98)

She appears half in love widi further travel with him, but her behaviour then changes. Having shrugged off his advances, she then shunned everyone: "1 don't want to go anywhere or see anyone this winter...after so horrid an experience. 1 feel absolutely defiled..." {Letters II: 100) Her reaction is extreme. Although his behaviour was unwelcome, what we do not know is whether this was because he was married, and Stark was holding out for marriage, as seems entirely possible, or whether advances from any man would have been unacceptable. The latter question is never settled.

She wrote to Buddicom:

He says that in fifteen years' time 1 shall be horrid and soured for want of a husband. Do you think this is so, dear Venetia? Shall we be two sour old maids together? What shocked me as a matter of fact was not the fact of his being married so much as the want of restraint - which seems to me to distinguish love from lust. True love can wait and master itself and live even on a shadow: or that is what 1 believe. {Letters 11: 99)

She seemed to be courting Buddicom with her slyly intimate questions, or alternatively making meaningful asides to one who was familiar with her sexual activities. Her views on "true love" suggest that she had known no sexual passion. However, Maxwell's taunts about "sour old maids" indicate the pressures put upon unmarried women, who both in Baghdad and in English society in general, were "dammed if they did and dammed if they didn't".

Having declared a winter of truce, she regained her equanimity with remarkable rapidity,

and only a week later she revealed that Evan Guest, another friend, had slept downstairs

at siesta time, leaving his tie and studs in the drawing room, so that she worried that "my

poor reputation [would be] gone for ever (C.H. says 1 needn't worry -1 haven't got any). 1

asked him what 1 could do for a respectable holiday..." (Letters II: 99) In other words.

Stark is pressuring Holt into offering to take her - thus compromising his own reputation,

so that he would be expected to marry her. Single men were not immune from the

pressures of marriage either, regardless of their inclinations - and there is no indication

that Holt had at any time wished to change his status. Stark also titillates our reasonable

curiosity. If Guest's studs were downstairs, and he was not, one might wonder where their

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owner was. She is seen, apparently playing one man off against the other, unsuccessfully.

Whether worldliness or naivete is uppermost is a moot point.

As far as conservative Baghdad was concerned, Holt's statement about the common

perception of her was correct: her outward behaviour was not discreet. It was also unlikely

to elicit proposals of marriage from ambitious men, like Captain Holt, and that was what

she had hoped for. That was why she was in Baghdad, though the competition was stiff:

"All Baghdad is to be filled this winter with young and lovely debutantes - about half a

dozen. So I shall not have a look in", she wrote playfully in 1932. (Beyond Euphrates: 283) The clash is head-on, between her conflicting desires: to travel and to marry well.

Because of the conflict, she was blind to, or more likely indulgent of, the evident

contradictions in her behaviour.

Anton Besse in Aden and London, December, 1934'June, 1936.

Freya Stark met Frenchman Anton Besse, the founder of St. Antony's College, Oxford,

and "king" of the Red Sea shipping traffic, in Aden, on her first journey to the

Hadhramaut. She was besotted and wrote delighted letters to many of her friends,

detailing Besse's attentions towards her. She mistook his normal hospitality for particular

attentions towards herself and wrote to family friend, Herbert Young, in December, 1934:

M. Besse is more than charming: he is a Merchant, in the style of the Arabian Nights or the Renaissance...He lives here in the Arab quarter of the town...knowing everyone who is worth knowing, and having immense power all over the country...He...immediately found me a house nearby...and sends me my food unless I come to eat here...l have not been about much yet, except to...buy a night-gown...(Letters II: 207-9)

The reference to the nightgown reveals the direction of her thoughts. She did seem to

buy rather a lot when she met a man to whom she was visibly drawn. His attractions are

immediately obvious and she said to her mother:

He is very much what Mario might have been if he had carried out what he said, and if he cared only for the immaterial side of things...exacting everything from those he cares for, the absolute domination: it makes him no doubt difficult to live with. (Letters 11:211)

The comparison with her much-hated brother-in-law in admiring terms, confirms what I

have suggested elsewhere, which is that Stark did not dislike her brother-in-law nearly as

much as she insisted: his only unforgivable fault seems to have been to have married her

sister. The notion of male domination always excited Stark: although she strenuously

resisted it in reality. She concluded with devastating naivete, since Stark was aged 41 at

the time, and Besse was a millionaire who diverted his considerable energies to his

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multifarious business dealings that: "he has made several fortunes - and does not care for

money a bit". (Letters II: 211) Clearly he did. Stark did not make the right connections

because she was hopelessly addicted to spending money, which was often not her own,

and she grudged earning slender money by ordinary toil.

The passage also reveals die large amount of practical help Stark received, but which she

never really acknowledges, probably because Besse too, eventually offended her and was

"written out" of her story of her successes as an explorer. He aided her with introductions

to inner Hadhramaut, and had friends among die rival Mukalla Sultans. Lady Allenby

had introduced her to him and she probably would not have succeeded without his aid.

Besse took Stark for an exhilarating trip at night on his launch:

It was such fiin...M. Besse and I lying in great comfort on cushions, while he kept the tiller with one hand.. .We went on and on. "1 know a cave, we could sleep on the sand," said M. Besse, "but Meryem [his daughter] would be anxious." 1 though this quite as well, as 1 may just as well keep some shred of reputation while I am about it. But we still went on...I had not the faintest idea where we were, what time or what world we were in...(Letters II: 212-3)

The constant lip-service paid by Stark to her reputation is tedious. It is obvious that in

actuality it was a remote consideration. The tale contains titillating sexual undertones

and so did the next, when, in July, 1935, she holidayed with the Besses and he drove her

from Asolo to Le Paradou, near St. Tropez in the South of France. In a tone of romantic

yearning she said:

Everything mechanic was against us...We reached Barcelonette late at night and slept there, and next day wound down among the lonely woods of ilex and mimosa...I now came back into the light and shade of living...he seemed to be made, like the brilliance of the landscape and the sky, out of the sane, extrovert, unhesitating air of Provence, and even now a hard, bright, unclouded day on the European side of the Mediterranean will make me think of Anton Besse without apparent cause. (Coast of Incense: 95 -96)

The story in her autobiography stops here. They had been "forced" to spend one night

alone en route. The scene seems set for a stage romance but her Letters revealed a very

different ending. She wrote from Le Paradou to Buddicom that she had:

gone through a rather shattering crisis. I will tell you but not write...If I...could afford it, I would fly over to you just for a week and back and say nothing to anyone." (Letters III: 5 -6)

A few days later she said:

W h a t can I have written to you? The crisis was not financial and I am sailing into more peaceful waters: it was just one of those Decisions which are apt to appear like sudden dragons in one's path - and when the time comes, there you are with the necessity for choice upon you, and nothing to substitute for it. (Letters III: 6}

What the decision was she did not say. We may surmise that Besse had made sexual

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overtures towards her, much as Eric Maxwell had done, and xhat she had repulsed him.

Izzard concurs with this:

Any transition from flattering attention to direct sexual overture was likely to throw her, and this seems to have been what happened with Besse. It was an Intrusion of reality into the reveries in which she was apt to trace amorous designs in any sympathetic approach...no other incident is recorded in a stay extending over six weeks. (Izzard: 98-99)

Curiously, in view of what I had to say before about her childhood play experiences with

Herbert Young, directly before her visit to the Besses, she had been on holiday with

Herbert Young. {Coast of Incense: 95) He had read to her from Middlemarch by George

Eliot. T h e main plot of the book relates of the presumably sexless marriage between

young Maggie and the dried-up elderly scholar, Casubon. Maggie and Stark seem to have

mistaken ideals in common. At the Besses's, Stark became very disturbed. She was

offered some kind of a choice in life by Besse, presumably of a sexual nature. She does not

say what it was, but uses the simile of her decision being: "like sudden dragons in one's

path". I do not think that the use of the simile is random. It seems that the holiday with

Herbert Young had stirred up haunting memories of her disturbing childhood dragon-play

with him. From her subsequent conduct, we may infer that the resurgence of the memory

warned her against acquiescence towards Besse. One wonders what might have happened,

had her childhood memories not been rekindled.

Stark returned to England and stayed with Buddicom intermittently from autumn, 1935

until May, 1936. In June, they quarrelled, ending the long friendship. Stark, Buddicom

and Besse had been in London simultaneously. Leaving London without saying goodbye

to Buddicom, who had absented herself, after a tense meeting the day before, Stark wrote

later to continue a quarrel:

I did not trust myself to speak of it, but the fact is that 1 waited for him all that evening while you were dining together and 1 heard of it only the next day from him. (Letters III: 34 )

T h e "him" referred to was Anton Besse, who had evidently not kept an anticipated

appointment with Stark, two days before she left London. Although the issue was strictly

between Stark and Besse, she blamed Buddicom. Besse's cruelty, or mastery of the

situation, is evident. He had brought his daughter with him presumably to avoid an

emotional scene. She had been in expectation of a solitary tete-a-tete, so that, she

claimed, she could "put an end to things", but she doesn't sound as though that was what

she had really intended. She wrote to Buddicom, whilst still on the train: "You must not

think I minded your going: it was not being told that 1 minded". (Letters III: 36) Clearly,

she did mind. Her autobiography said:

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my friend and lover met...I was rather unattractive and fat from illness, and the unstable masculine horizon was instantly filled with my friend's grace and charm. I knew that love was dying...I withdrew, with sorrow and longing; but before doing so, spoke to my friend...I asked her to be generous ...for many years I never trusted a woman again in any intimate matter. (The Coast of Incense: 100-101)

Stark could accept "unstable male horizons" but not unstable female ones. She revealed, despite what she said, diat she had been anticipating a declaration, not what amounted to a dismissal by the adroit Besse:

if he had gone on caring for me, he would have been able to tell her Ihis wife] as he had promised - or I would...but feeling as we did, 1 think it was possible to make of our love a beautiful, creative and enduring thing for all three. (Letters III: 39-40)

Her words appear to imply that she had some kind of menage-a-trois in mind, with the

knowledge and even approval of his wife. Clearly Besse did not. Ignoring the fact that he

had already terminated the relationship, she said: "I know 1 must not compromise now,

and if just friendship is not enough for h im from me then everything must stop." (Letters

III: 40) W h a t the "everything else" referred to is titillating, but obscure. It may have

been only gallant talk, and a kissed hand, but equally it may not. There was no record of

any fur ther "tender fr iendship" with Besse. Stark's inability to handle int imate

relationships of this nature is evident.

A t t en t ion upon the diverting relationship between Stark and Besse obscures another

issue. She was far more upset at Buddicom's betrayal of her than Besse's. H i e quarrel

terminated a long friendship which had always apparently meant more to Stark than to

Buddicom, and was never really replaced. Despite Stark's words, it seems to have been

Buddicom who dropped her. Her letter concluded: "The only thing I long for now is to

get away to the East, far away from everything and everybody. Dear love to you," (Letters

III: 40) which indicates one of the important uses of travel to Stark - to escape emotional

unpleasantnesses of her own creation, instead of dealing with them. Stark was also

unbecomingly anxious to prove that she was still "desirable" and a replacement was

quickly found: though whether for Besse or Buddicom remains forever uncertain.

Aside from the emotional situation, Stark's writing style, with its evocative recall of the

golden time of her romance with Besse is masterly and she maintains the standard in the

following account of a love which was apparently consummated.

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A London Affair.

A lightness rescued me, gay temporary and spontaneous, without possible permanence, unpossessive and free, a butterfly in die sun. It was an alms in my loneliness and I let myself slide into it widi fiill consciousness, with a childish gratitude, for a warm friendly hand in die dark. For it demanded nothing: nor did it reach or bruise those wounds that heal slowly (Coast o/Incense: 101)

Although "the warm friendly hand in the dark" demanded nothing, Stark still bought anodier nightdress. (She first mentioned buying one when she had met Anton Besse and she buys a third and fourth subsequently.)

I walked along Knightsbridge to buy a chiffon and lace nightdress...! was pleased to find that I was myself more than ever, with life added, and no bite of conscience or regret - which appeared, strangely, to surprise my lover, who diought it 'a-moral'. {Coast of Incense: 101)

She speaks like a woman of the world and it is difficult to believe that she meant

otherwise than what her words implied - that she enjoyed a physical relationship with

someone:

I think of this time with tenderness, and of the small happy things that belonged to it, the hours that came slowly and went fast, the little shock of meeting as if, every time, the memory and the reality had to be re-introduced, as strangers. {Coast of Incense: 101)

She concluded:

For a year or two this happiness flickered along, doing no one any harm, till the darkening circumstances of the world swallowed it up...Because of the lightness of our union, no sorrow attended this departure. Unlike most women, I prefer love without matrimony^... {Coast of Incense: 102)

"It was delightful to be desired, to give pleasure, to be a partner in the mystery of life".

(Coast of Incense: 102) Tliis relationship presumably took place in London, where Stark

stayed from September - October, 1936, and again in December, 1936-January, 1937.

Although she speaks of her partner as male, it need not have been and although it did "no

one any harm", its air of suffused secrecy suggests otherwise. It remains an unexplained

mystery with no satisfactory explanation. It does not present a picture of a daisy-like

innocence, which is Izzard's preferred view of Stark.

The validity of her conclusion is open to question.

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Kuwait

In March, 1937, she went to Kuwait, where she visited the Resident, Captain Gerald De Gaury (b. 1897) for a month. We may surmise that she arrived unexpectedly and even uninvited:

2 "It seems diat it isn't proper for me to stay widi him but 1 radier hope he may get me a room out...he has gone for four days to Bahrain." {letters III: 72) Her autobiography said: "I am installed in a little annexe...a referendum among die women here pronounced that all is proper so long as one does not sleep under die same roof . {Coast of Incense: 137) (Stark was forty-four years of age.) She told her modier: "D.G. has been a perfect host, so quiet and dioughtful and diinking of nice things: and I find it an effort to tear myself away now". {Coast of Incense: 141) She later described her stay as:

one month's perfect happiness in Kuwait. It was quite perfect - everything being right in the right surroundings...! think he enjoyed it too...It is unfortunate that I always like people who are so unsteady in their affections...D.G. would be very unsafe but not at all dull (not that there is any d:iought on either side of such a matter as far as I am concerned). He is the most casual man 1 have ever met. (Coast of Incense: 142)

Gerald de Gaury's attitude towards the visit is unexamined. He mentions her urbanely enough in his autobiography, admitting long friendship, and revealing the somewhat patronizing attitude which Stark and her friends seemed to reserve for each other.^ Clearly she had embarrassed him by her indiscreet behaviour in Kuwait, though he rose nobly to the occasion. He too, like Captain Holt, seems not to have married, but the reference to marriage again indicates that it was in her mind, if not, unfortunately in his. She claimed a liking for "unsteady men". It makes her appear very much a woman of the world, but perhaps they are merely brave words. Neither he nor Holt appeared to have disturbed her by sexual attentions- unwanted or otherwise.

As a young Colonial Service officer, Sir Gawain Bell recorded similarly urbane treatment during the week he spent in Kuwait with de Gaury, also uninvited. Shadows in the Sand: The Memoirs of Sir Gawain Bell. New York: St Martins. London: Hurst. 1983, p.224. Gerald de Gaury. Traces of Travel Brought Home from Abroad. London: Quartet. 1983. pp. 175-178.

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Marriage with Stewart Perowne (1901-1989) in 1947

After possibly imaginary proposals (Mario di Roascio); notions of companionate marriage

with a man of sixty (Professor W.P. Ker); with a man whom she hoped might become his

substitute, (Bernard d'Hendecourt), but who seemed to have greatly preferred men; an

Italian bacteriologist who was humiliatingly forced to propose by an outraged di Roascio,

but who balked after engagement and returned to a former mistress (Guido Ruata);

waiting seven years for an Italian nobleman to propose - and then pettishly rejecting him

for being so slow, but still waiting for him to try again - which he did, but he asked

someone else next time, who did not hesitate (Gabriel de Bottini de Ste Agnes); allowing

an ancient army officer to die before he proposed (Colonello Biancheri); waiting seven

years for anodier army officer to declare himself but he never did (Captain Vyvyan Holt);

hovering over the possibility of a menage-a-trois affair until his ardour (if any) cooled

(Anton Besse); an affair with an unnamed person in London, who seemed rather shocked

at her "fastness"; a proposal from a young man who died shortly after in mysterious

circumstances, and whose brother seemed to think the proposal unlikely, ("The man with

whom I would have been happy, and who cared, was killed by the Germans in Stuttgart in

April, 1939", (Donald Lennox Boyd, whom she barely knew) (Letters IV: 275), a judge

who hotly pursued her but would have had to arrange to divorce his wife first (Eric

Maxwell); a friend too young even to be considered (Nigel Clive) - and even he married a

year later - in short without a single unenforced proposal of marriage ever - Stark finally

met a man neither too old to marry, nor already encumbered with a wife, nor even with a

preferred mistress, (although in the circumstances, it might have been better if he had been). He was several years younger than Stark. In common with all of her suitors or

would-be suitors, he was eminently respectable - he was the son of a Bishop. He was

educated at Haileybury and Cambridge and his name was Stewart Henry Perowne. He

had one fatal flaw, which should have disqualified him too, but which did not surface

until later.

Stark met him on her arrival for her second expedition to the Hadhramaut in 1937. They

were married ten years later in 1947, when she was 54 years of age, and he was in his late

forties. Perowne had been Political Officer in Aden, and in the kind of quixotic act

which delighted Stark, neglected the people he was officially meeting in order to attend to

her party:

134

he left the oilmen to their fate and came up to offer the Governor's launch, quoting Paradise Lost while he wafted our luggage over the side. He was gay, slim, well-dressed, enthusiastic, with a sparkle that matched the sunlight on the bay. His light-hearted treatment of the duties of an A.D.C. charmed me...Stewart has told me that it was at this moment [diey nearly s ^ k in a collision] diat he differentiated me from the P. & O. background. (Coast of Incense: 168)

He was also very bald, which detracts considerably f^om the romantic picture that she

painted. Stark was always charmed by conventional men who behaved unconventionally.

When the war started, he requested her to join him in Aden as his assistant. The

relationship was lightheartedly flirtatious, but always potentially explosive. Independent

action, especially of an irregular nature, which was habitual in Stark, annoyed him. For

much of die brief time when she worked "with" him, she was elsewhere, showing English

films in the harems of Yemen. She wrote to him flirtatiously:

Your letters are my great and only pleasure. 1 should hate it if you became conceited all through me so I hasten to add that very few other pleasures are available. {Dust in the Lion's Paw: 30)

Later she wrote: "Stewart is back, and has taken from this office the loneliness of the last

ten days." (Dust in the Lion's Paw: 45) In June they were yachting together. She swam

with him at Galilee, rode widi him, and between times, walked with the same Captain

Holt of whom she had long cherished marital hopes in Baghdad, and mentioned her

lodger Nigel Clive.

Stark had some ambiguous things to say about love. It is uncertain whether the faux-naif

or the sophisticate is speaking when she later prepared to leave Baghdad for Cairo and

said, of an unnamed person: "Love, too, had come, easy, but perhaps happy for that

reason. It is, I think, an ungenerous heart that does not give itself in wartime, when men's

mere physical hunger for women is so great". {Dust in the Lions Paw: 160) It is not clear

whether she is referring to Perowne, which seems unlikely in the light of future events, or

someone else, even Nigel Clive, and no dates are offered. Neither did she record buying a

nightdress, yet the calm announcement implies a very definite physical relationship with

someone.

A Brief Interlude with Nigel Clive

Nigel Clive had lived in Stark's household as a paying guest in Baghdad. She wrote to

him in September, 1947:

Such a peculiar thing has happened: 1 have promised to marry Stewart. I have not written to anyone to tell them yet; but 1 must say so at once to you, for you are very dear to me, nor do 1 feel that this or anything else will affect it...If you had been old, or I young, we might have lived our lives together; or perhaps we might not have cared for each other or not realized it. (Letters Vh 22-23)

135

T h e letter reveals considerable closeness to Clive and he may be the person she referred to

as her intimate in Baghdad. Stark married in October 1947, but having been to Barbados,

in the Carribean, where Perowne was working, and finding it and him lacking, she

holidayed widi Nigel Clive the following August, and wrote to Perowne:

Such a charming little inn, each room called after a mountain. Nigel had Mont Blanc and I had Grappa...I went and called Nigel at five, which he strongly resented, and very nearly refused to get up at six with a cloudy sky. But we walked for twenty minutes.. .We went back to eggs for breakfast and a sleep. {Letters VI: 69-70)

Clive married a year or so later and diere are few subsequent references to him. It is not

recorded how Perowne received the indiscretion, or what it encompassed, or what

impression Stark had intended to convey to Perowne, especially about the mysterious gap

between five and six o'clock. It was rather a free revelation, for the times.

Perowne and Stark were both stranded in untimely fashion after the war. The

government had declined to employ Stark further. She wanted a husband and Perowne

needed a wife: his job required it. The marriage was evidently intended to be one of

convenience. Izzard reports: "Whatever doubts both parties experienced were put aside,

though each confided in private to mutual friends feelings of anxiety as to whether the

other was really quite good enough for d:iem." (Izzard: 210-211) Perowne was "socially

ambitious" (Izzard: 125) and it is probable that both would have preferred a titled partner.

Stark wrote to her publisher from Barbados:

I have been here a fortnight and haven't written. Really not lack of time, but a sort of caged feeling; and 1 felt if I wrote it would be just a wail. I found Stewart turned into the perfect Civil Servant, completely occupied by files and minutes and the things that are done...Don't repeat this, Jock, but 1 did look down into an abyss and am still very wobbly. (Letters VI: 47)

Stark only looked into the "abyss" when at the extremity of emotion. Ruthven called it

" the costly mistake of marriage" (Ruthven: 102) and Perowne threatened legal action if

Stark released letters relating to it. (Izzard: 6) After a couple of months. Stark left - feted

elsewhere and welcomed in the stately homes of England, the recipient of medals and

much sought after for radio and television broadcasts and lectures, she felt the contrast

keenly in her life with Perowne. She said to Lady Astor: "He doesn't want me, he wants a

home and a lot of odds and ends...But marriage is more than that...Friendship is as far as

the thermometer will rise..." {Letters VI: 264-265) The setting and the needs sound too

domestic by far for Stark, who wasn't interested in tending personally to her own needs,

let alone someone else's.

If her activities are any indication, it must be admitted that Stark does not seem to have

mourned the marriage very greatly, any more than she had the breakup with Besse.

136

Between sorrowful letters and visits to Barbados, and later to Benghazi, she visited Lord

Wavell in London, lunched with Lord Salisbury at Hatfield House, spent a weekend at

Lord and Lady Astor's home at Cliveden, and die day at Sissinghurst with Vita Sackville-

West. She also met die Countess of Ranfurly, a wartime associate, bought Paris clothing -

and all of this activity was within the space of a few weeks in 1949. It represented her

normal scale of activities and continued unabated. In 1951, she was consoled by a medal

for travel, an LL.D from Glasgow University, lunched with Queen Mary, learned to drive

a Vespa no better than she had ever driven anything else, entertained Sir Ronald Storrs at

Asolo, visited Sir Moore Crosdiwaite, who was Counsellor in Athens widi the Foreign

Office and revisited Benghazi.

As Stark's star rose, Perowne's fell and he received an untimely pension. Stark never

accepted the failure of the marriage: "so long a practitioner of will, she was not used to

failure". (Moorehead: 109-110). She found it difficult to believe that it was not Perowne's

fault, although her effusive letters suggest an unacknowledged sense of guilt. They are

filled with invitations to Perowne which he never accepted, rarely even acknowledged, to

visit her. "Stewart...was charming, witty, a good Arabist, and could expect, if not an

embassy, at least some fairly prestigious Foreign Office posting". (Moorehead: 100) When

she arrived in Barbados: "After nearly a decade of public admiration and attention, polite

conversation with diplomatic wives who had never heard of her was not enjoyable."

(Moorehead: 101-102) Then a job in Benghazi was found but: "Benghazi was not a

fashionable place" (Moorehead: 108) and Perowne's job was a sinecure. Their colleagues,

who had never heard of her, found Stark: "a little odd in shape and appearance."

(Moorehead: 108) It was obvious that all was not well with the marriage.

Ruthven analyzes her marriage and says that her naivete was combined with fearlessness.

Stark and Perowne had little time to plan life together:

if Stewart (as seems probable) saw it as a marriage of convenience between two old friends, Freya had other notions. Having previously been cheated of marriage, by desertion, she wanted matrimony in the fullest sense. This was hardly fair on Stewart, who more worldlywise, assumed she understood the kind of marriage he had in mind. The wedding took place in London where Freya had acquired a voluminous trousseau of frilly bed linen and negligees which caused considerable apprehension to some of her friends, who knew of Stewart's bachelor habits. (Ruthven: 102).

The frilly trousseau (yet another fancy nightdress) which dismayed friends who knew

them both, and the reference to Perowne's bachelor ways, suggest that Perowne had

always intended to avoid intimacy - and that Stark had not. Rose Macaulay stated flatly

that Perowne was a homosexual. (Izzard: 274) If he were, then Stark must be presumed to

have known. She had known him for ten years, and some of that time had been spent in

137

isolated intimacy in Aden. It is as ever a moot point whether Stark was affronted or

reassured, although she had seemed genuinely distressed when she wrote to John Murray.

In one of the A.D.F.A. letters, Stark said to Sir Harry Luke, a mutual friend, after leaving

Benghazi:

it was too painful altogether, and I have written to Stewart that it is to be friendship, good friendship, but no more: it never was more, but it was rapidly becoming less, as far as I was concerned.^

These words at least confirm the non-intimate nature of their relationship. It also

suggests that she was looking for the same carefree intimacy they had enjoyed as war-time

colleagues, mocking their superiors, criticizing decisions, and doing their best to improve

upon them. This kind of partnership no longer existed: she was only a wife and not a

colleague. She was also used to considerable power of an indirect nature - conferring with

those at the top, going over the heads of those more senior than herself. Now her only

access to policy was through a husband who was of only middling importance and perhaps

felt no need to discuss his work with her at all. Exclusion was always fatal with Stark. As

a result it is possible that they had nothing further in common. Worse, no one seemed to

know about her in Barbados and in Benghazi.

Molly Izzard said that people invariably brought up two topics in discussing Stark: her

Teheran black market car sale, and her marriage:

The bewilderment here centred on the impossibility of advising, or even warning, her against an imprudent decision. She put up such a bland front of smiling incomprehension when tackled on the pitfalls of marriage to a homosexual that people gave up the attempt...Many were convinced that she did not understand what homosexuality was. (Izzard: 39-40)

"The daisy-chain innocence of Freya's account to me of her activities was more

compatible with an artless debutante than a seasoned woman of the world, and produced

feelings that were the reverse of what she perhaps intended." (Izzard: 39) Only two lone

voices from Aden suggests that she had played the stage virgin: "One young couple, the de

Lotbinieres, who were rather taken up by her, received the impression that there was

'something up' between herself and Perowne." (Izzard: 140) It there were, then it was at

least complicated by his homosexuality or if the above comment applies, his bisexuality.

As I have already indicated, if Perowne had a preference for homosexuality, then it seems

to me improbable that Stark did not know, even if she chose not to admit to it. Izzard

thinks otherwise, regarding it as her "apparent inability to recognise the deviant sexual

impulse and the many disguises it can assume", (Izzard: 271) owing to Stark's own limited

See Appendix 2. A.D.F.A. (Letter dated 13.4.51)

138

sexual experience. She says that though Stark enjoyed the company of men, and they

hers, what they enjoyed was her absence of sexual threat.

One does not need to be active oneself in order to know about sexuality in all its forms,

and Stark wrote about homosexuality with assurance. She said in 1952, the year the

marriage dissolved: "This place [Asolo] is full of pansies and Lesbians, some are charming,

but some Go Too Far." {Letters VI: 271) They are throwaway lines, saying nodiing, but

implying worldliness. Stark, following a familiar pattern of behaviour, both knew and did

not know about homosexuality and indeed, I conclude, what was in her own mind about

sexual matters. If she were disappointed at the sexual outcome of her marriage, then it

was characteristically due to the clash of two mutually desired ends: between her strong

desire for marriage, and her knowledge of Perowne's sexual persuasion and hence safety.

Izzard undercuts her argument that Stark was a laughable innocent by her observation

that Stark must have known of the relationship between her Ventimiglia neighbour,

Bernard d'Hendecourt^ and David Horner. (Izzard: 271) It seems that Izzard too had

difficulties in coming to terms with Stark's ability to know something, but to behave as

though she did not: if Stark knew about Bernard d'Hendecourt's homosexuality, then

equally, she must have known about Perowne's.

Izzard goes on to develop the case that Stark made much of male attention because she

was genuinely doubtful of her own sexual inclinations. She remarks that among the

people influencing her career whom she failed to acknowledge, was the writer Margaret

Jourdain, who, after the First World War, transferred her friendly interest and

encouragement from Stark to Ivy Compton-Burnett^. Jourdain and Compton-Burnett

lived in a single-sex partnership, as did many of their group, in relationships often

rendered necessary by lost war-time loves. However, same- sex and even male-female

partnerships were not necessarily sexual. Stark was much influenced by Jourdain's style of

living, which like her own, depended upon the fortunes of others to support it.

Certainly, Stark seemed to favour the idea of platonic love. She had lived for extensive

periods with Buddicom and had considered the desirability of a platonic union with W.P.

Ker. She had once told Colonello Biancheri, yet another potential "suitor", that she

considered the state of widowhood to be the most desirable. (Traveller's Prelude: 263)

Izzard refers to him, presumably incorrectly, as d'Hendrecourt. 6. Stark was greatly offended at being usurped by her, referring to her as "that dull Ivy Compton-

Burnett", but she was careful to include her in invitations to Jourdain to stay at L'Arma in the 1920s. (Izzard: 273)

139

Clearly the sexually-free and responsibility-free life-style had a magnetic attraction for

Stark. However, in view of her later life, I felt that what she wanted in reality was a

return to childhood, rather than displaying any particular attitude towards sexuality. This

explanation fits her tendency to fall ill and demand care, when life became difficult.

T h e immature actions of her youth indicate a muddled morality. She had courted her

mother in her youth. Because she wanted an exclusive relationship with her mother, she

had tried to break up her mother's relationship with di Roascio. When that did not work,

she tried to supplant her mother in di Roascio's affections. Any group of two people

which did not include her greatly disturbed her. Young men apparently shunned her. It is

highly probable that she remained sexually confused, and that a platonic relationship in

marriage with Perowne would not have greatly disturbed her, despite the doubts expressed

by her friends.

Izzard's view that: "She specialized in the faux-naif. This took in some, and amused

others", (Izzard: 302) is true, but contradictory, since Izzard also argued strongly that Stark

possessed a genuine "daisy-chain naivety". I do not believe there are any grounds for

believing that she was unaware of the different shades of love. Her pose, if it was one,

very correctly discouraged intimate questions.

My initial reaction was that Stark's constant refrain about her concern with preserving

her "reputation" was pure play-acting, because it was highly overdone - and also because

her reputation had already been lost by the mere fact of her single state, since only "free

women" travelled unescorted. Her indiscreet behaviour would not have been

countenanced in Baghdad society, regardless of what she seems to think. Such

incomprehension demands explanation: she was willful and ignored self-evident reality.

She did not behave with the strict morality of W.P. Ker or Viva Jeyes or her colleagues in

the upper echelons of the Ministry of Information and the Armed Services either. She

behaved as she did because she was forced to set precedents wherever she went. The

inflexible standards of behaviour among the British would not have suited any mature

unmarried woman. This situation resulted in a failure to integrate the warring sides of her

personality, so that she seemed to be embracing worldly and ingenue roles very nearly

simultaneously.

It has however left me with doubts about whether she ever led a mature sexual life at any

stage, or indeed whether her orientation was heterosexual or homosexual. There is reason

to believe from what she wrote that she may have had several apparently intimate

relationships widi men. The amoral "affaire" she reported in London might have been

140

with a woman, since she refers to its amorality. She also repulsed an over-amorous man or

two and she married a homosexual. What the latter implied is open to interpretation.

However a final word about censorship still allows room for doubt about the true

situation. Cyril Connolly^ failed to find an English publisher because of his fleeting

references to same-sex and extra-marital coupling which took place amongst the

international community on the French Riviera in the 1930s. Any reference to sexual

immorality was discouraged in print. John Murray exerted a strong control over

everydiing Stark wrote and his blue pencil was much in evidence. It is highly unlikely

that he would have permitted open reference to any kind of irregularity. It may be that

evident contradictions in Stark's character are not character flaws in the full sense, but

represent efforts to come to grips widi die restrictions placed upon her. However, the end

result is that Stark apparently establishes an "unintegrated personality", as this account of

her "loves" reveals.

Cyril Connolly. The Rock Pool. Introduction Peter Quennell. Oxford: University Press. 1981. p. vi-vii. (First published Paris: Obelisk, 1936)

141

APPENDIX 2

THE AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE FORCE ACADEMY (A.D.F.A.) LIBRARY LETTERS

CORRESPONDENCE OF DAME FREYA STARK WITH SIR HARRY LUKE

The Special Collections of the Australian Defence Force Academy Library contains the

correspondence of Dame Freya Stark (1893-1993) and of her husband Stewart Perowne

(1901-1989) with a mutual friend, Sir Harry Luke (1884-1969) ' . They cover the years

1951-1964 for those written by Stark and 1942-1960 for those written by Perowne and

have not been published before, despite the quantities published in her eight volumes

(1974-1983) and die selection Over the Rim of the World (1988)2.

Sir Harry Luke was a sympathetic correspondent with both Stark and Perowne. He was

the type of upper class man whom Stark revered. After a privileged education at Eton and

Oxford, he had been created a knight in 1933 during the course of a successful career in

government colonial service, in which he was Chief Secretary of Palestine (1928-1930),

Lieutenant-Governor of Malta (1930-1938) and Governor of Fiji (1938-1942). His

marriage ended in divorce in 1949. He also had a long writing career which stretched for

some fifty years from 1913, when he wrote The Fringe of the East, to Islands of the South

Pacific ( 1962) . He enjoyed travelling even in retirement and belonged to the Order of

Jerusalem, as did Stark. He therefore had a lot in common with Stark, apart from his long

friendship with Stewart Perowne, whose late marriage to Stark was foundering.

Stark had a reputation, whether deserved or not, for being ruthless and demanding. These

letters offered the possibility of confirming or denying that reputation and also of

throwing a little more light upon her failed marriage which had always been shrouded in

secrecy.

He was originally Perowne's friend, and the first reference to him in Stark's letters is from Bridgetown, Barbados, where he stayed with them for a week. (Letters VI: 89, 3 February, 1949.) Freya Stark. Letters. l-Vlll. 1-VI, Ed. Lucy Moorehead, VII-VIII, Caroline Moorehead. Salisbury: Compton Russell, 1974-1976; Michael Russell. 1977-1983. Over the Rim of the World. Selected Letters of Freya Stark. Ed. Caroline Moorehead. London: John Murray in Association with Michael Russell. 1988.

142

The legend has grown up around Stark, and was incidentally encouraged by her, that her

letters were published as she wrote them. She wrote to a reviewer who had criticized her

letters for being: "too polished and evidently written with a view to publication" that:

my letters had mostly been written at the roadside while my men were setting up the camp of cooking our supper. I told him the great changes that have taken place in language during the past half-century probably account for what was written spontaneously fifty or sixty years ago seeming like the result of conscious effort today.^

It was an image of herself which she enjoyed fostering. In a very substantial review in the Times Literary Supplement, the writer Patrick Leigh Fermor confirmed her statements by

observing:

Writing of the first volumes of these remarkable Letters, one critic complained of the reshaping and touching-up he assumed must have taken place; but he was wrong. Sprung from an earlier generation, Dame Freya Stark has escaped the decay in literacy which has smitten the rest of us, and most of these letters were written haphazard from wild places...and then published as they stood. Yet the mistake is understandable in the lucidity of her style, its balance and smooth flow, and in writing as in speech, her sentences always fall on their feet with a light spontaneous and unfaltering aptness.^

TTiis is easily refuted. Nothing of hers has ever been published exactly as she wrote it and

with her published Letters it was no different. She comments frequently about the labour

of pleasing her publisher, John Murray. Even after a thirty-year writing career, she wrote

plaintively:

I think you overdo the taking out of personal bits and are in danger of turning it into a Report rather than an Autobiography?^ 1 was not happy about this...but at the same time felt that there is probably something wrong with the paragraphs you dislike...So 1 have recast that whole chapter...but shortening and tightening...(Letters VIII: 4)

She was not always accommodating. After the Lord Wakefield sponsored Southern

Arabian Expedition of November, 1937-March, 1938, John Murray had had to use all of

his tact to restrain her from libelling two respected women expeditioners. She had been

in continual correspondence with him about the experience, which is recounted in A

Winter in Arabia (1940) and at one point she explodes with: "Your letter fills me with

despair. How am 1 to make my point of view intelligible? Not God Almighty could I let

loose with scissors in my book".^ {Letters III: 266) Murray had sought other opinions

about what she had written and she wrote: "1 am glad you are having the MS looked at

with the eyes of a stranger, and hope you have played strictly fair and not told him one

Alexander Maitland. A Tower in a Wall. Edinburgh: William Blackwood. 1982. p. 97. 4 Patrick Leigh Fermor. "A delight in wild places". T.L.S. 1983. 434.

Stark was writing the fourth volume of her autobiography. Dust in the Lion's Paw. (1961) 6. She referred to A Winter in Arabia. (1940)

143

word as to what he is to look for. A t present seven people besides yourself have read it". (Letters 111: 268)

This is sufficient evidence diat she had always had her own ideas about what and how she

wanted to write, but had not always succeeded in convincing her publisher. The same

ediics which guarded die reputations of her colleagues were to protect Stark herself, when

die time came for reticence on personal matters. Spontaneity was not and never had been

a feature of her work but she enjoyed playing to the gallery. The catalogue which deals

with a collection of many her letters in the Humanities Research Center, Texas confirms

that:

of those letters that have already appeared in print, scarcely any is published in full (e.g. only

four pages of an 18-page letter to her mother are used): also that many passages have been

retrospectively 'improved'7

Patrick Leigh Termor's words indicate the kind of mystique which always seemed to

surround Stark, but which could either not be substantiated, or, as in this case, could be

refuted. A recently published biography by Molly Izzard observes that:

Read in the original the letters are surprisingly loose in construction, hurriedly knocked

together and preoccupied with business, gossip, plans and arrangements. The brilliant

descriptive passages are imbedded in a mass of ephemeral concerns which have been edited out

of the printed material to produce the elegant literary style which so impressed her admirers.

The letters, when eventually assembled, ran into thousands of pages, and were 'tidied' by Freya

herself before being typed under her supervision prior to being handed to Lucy Moorehead.

[her editor]®

The A.D.F.A. letters provide a unique example of reading her unedited work. As the

letters here indicate, the extent and range of her activities when Stark was not staying

with her husband were breathtaking. She travelled from one great country house to

another, from a royal lunch or dinner to the presentation of a medal or an honorary

degree. It would be difficult to overestimate Stark's social success during the period

covered by these letters. She did not have time to be Perowne's wife, handing out prizes,

digging in trees and accepting flowers graciously in far flung islands of the Empire - it

would have meant absenting herself for lengthy periods of time from her own busy social

life. Her contact with the Royal family brought out her underlying naivete about things

and people and left her breathless. Her writing skills were taxed to the utmost as she

recollected every single detail of Queen Mary's clothes on one occasion. Stark later

reported receiving a letter from her. She was invited to stately homes where Royalty was

Humanities Research Center, Texas. Catalogue of The Freya Stark Archive. 1-13. p. 13

Molly Izzard. Freya Stark: A Biography. London: Hodder «Si Stoughton. 1993. p. 6.

144

present, she was photographed with the Queen Mother at the Castle of Mey, (Izzard,

facing p. 231) and her previously published letters reveal that Princess Margaret and Lord

Snowdon lunched with her in Asolo in 1964. {Letters VIII: 80) She greatly valued those

people possessed of titles, debutante daughters and Eton-educated sons. It was her

adopted world of preference and Eton had been the place where a number of her godsons

were educated.

Sir Harry Luke was typical of her friends and correspondents, the vast majority of whom

were people of inherited wealth, leisure, and education, very often titled, and sometimes

writers of travel books, as she herself was. She shared her twin loves of travel writing and

gardening with aristocratic correspondent Vita Sackville-West. Like Sir Harry, her

friends had usually made their living in foreign lands, had entertained widely in an official

capacity, and could not now settle back readily into English life. Stark's letters to her

friends frequently included invitations to visit her: she claimed loneliness, which is

difficult to substantiate - she hardly ever was alone. She meant something beyond the

presence of a busy social life. The claim of loneliness and her often confused finances

were linked with the feeling that she wanted someone else to be responsible for her life.

She had clung to her father and to her mother in their lifetimes. She sought a partner

who would fill that role after their deaths. It proved impossible to fill and her late,

impulsive marriage dissolves early in the course of this correspondence. It is evident that

she thought that Sir Harry, himself a recently divorced man, would make a highly suitable

companion, and presumably a suitable husband. In the absence of a suitable husband, she

sought "lodgers". TTiey were not the conventional kind, who would themselves be cared

for but people who would care both for her and for her finances. They remained

obstinately elusive, despite the seven or eight old friends or families to whom, at one time

or another, she made more or less serious offers to share her home with her.

Friends were important. Her letters to them cemented the relationship. Her distress at

the breakup with Stewart Perowne is evident - perhaps too evident. Friends offered her

the reassurance that she still mattered, even though the war had long since finished, and

with it her brief, heady career with the British Government, for whom she worked in

Cairo, Baghdad and Southern Arabia, and from the excitement of which she and perhaps

they never recovered. She spoke longingly of the possibility of another war in the fifties

and sixties, often planning to offer her services again and making wild plans to store

property. Friends also provided her with a link with England, bringing her books, plants

and news.

145

She offered a demanding friendship. Her requests to Sir Harry Luke to bring cumbersome

shrubs, trees and bulbs from England, and hunt down rare books and other items, reveal

the manner in which she used friends. Letters must have been opened with an unusual

degree of curiosity, as she exhorted Sir Harry to meet her in an obscure comer of Turkey,

or bear this or diat parcel to another address. Her instructions were always lengthy and

precise - on one occasion she offered to pay for excess baggage on a plane, on another she

wanted the items brought only if he were travelling by train, suggesting that there had

been past difficulties in fulfilling her requests. If she wanted tenants, or to sell her house,

she did not hesitate to canvass her correspondents - including Sir Harry. Her friends'

large financial gifts assisted her refusal to live within her income and her money problems

are only too apparent in this correspondence with Sir Harry.

H i e letters also provide a window into a privileged existence - not so much that of Stark,

whose own position was at best marginal - but of her titled friends, who flocked to the

Beyreuth Festival, to the opera in Milan or the Greek Islands, well before the era of mass

tourism and chains of hotels. TTiey possessed the enviable confidence of people whose

books would be published, by a relative or close family friend, should they write them, and

whose position always assured them of a welcome in comfortable homes and foreign

embassies. Hieir work provided them with honours and titles upon retirement in addition

to those they already possessed. They guarded their own and their friend's reputations

sedulously.

Note on the Text

Stark's letters abound in references to events and people which have been identified in

footnotes. Much of the information comes from Stark's own Letters, published in eight

volumes.

In general, her handwriting is clear, but dates are sometimes difficult to read. In the year

1951, her fives flow into the following number, which appears to read "1957". Since her

permanent home in Asolo, near Venice served only as a base for her constant motion, it

was not difficult to establish which year was which, simply by noting the address from

which her letter was sent. Thanks to the publication of her letters there exists an

impressive and meticulous documentation of her life.

There are a number of stylistic quirks in the appearance of Stark's letters. In this

collection, she overflows with things to say. She uses abbreviations freely and often runs

out of space at the end of the line. The final word is then written up or down the left

hand margin. She did this more often as she grew older. Post-scripts or conclusions are

146

also squashed in and sometimes written at right-angles to the page, in the side margins or

near the top of the first page. Only one instance occurs of the spelling of a proper name

being altered. She often underlines for emphasis but exclamation marks are used

sparingly. She crosses out, indeed in this instance obliterates, one sentence only, and that

relates to Stewart Perowne, signalling her overwhelming feelings about him. She had

spelling lapses but they are rare. In contrast, her punctuation is idiosyncratic. She rarely

uses full stops, preferring the dash, of varying length. These dashes convey a sense of

speed, even excitement - both in Stark and in the events surrounding with her, but they

also detract considerably from the overall impression. The idiosyncrasies are retained.

The Letters are followed by a conclusion, taking up some of the issues raised by Stark.

1 4 7

FREYA STARK TO SIR HARRY LUKE

C a s a Freia Asolo 9 1 3 . 4 . 5 1 1 0

M y dear Harry - 1 a m back in Asolo - & I wonder where you are? In your new h o m e - 1

Uking it I hope? I look forward to seeing it & you - As far as I know I shall be hastening

up to Scot land in June, !^ but lingering on the way back, & 1 hope you will take me to sign

the book of S t John^^ late in July or in August - I have only just come round to thinking

of plans ' after leaving Bengazi^^ early in March, & reaching Asolo on the 17th - & then

being busy with all the things one finds when one gets home -

I decided that I could n o t turn into Coral & it was too painful altogether, & I have

writ ten to Stewart that it is to be friendship, good friendship, but no more: it never was

m o r e , ! ^ but it was rapidly becoming less, as far as I was concerned, & I a m happier now.

T h e n e x t effort will have to be on his side^^, & 1 hope so much he will make it; but I

Casa Freia was Stark's home in Asolo, a small town near Venice in Italy. She had lived with her mother in Italy since she was about nine or ten, at first in Dronero, Piedmont (1902-1918), then at La Mortola, Ventimiglia, on the Italian Riviera (1918-1924), and finally in Asolo (1924-1993), though retaining the Ventimiglia property for some years. She and her mother shared Casa Freia with Herbert Young, an Australian artist, and originally her father's friend, until Young's death in 1941, when it was bequeathed to Stark, as promised. She describes the extensive accommodation in her letter of 27.3.54. Stark has written 13.4.57. but the content of the letter indicates that the 7 is a 1.

^ Sir Harry had divorced his wife Joyce in 1949. She received her Doctorate from the University of Glasgow in a colourful ceremony which delighted her. She was overwhelmed but by no means incoherent about her progress around the stately homes of England, which included lunch with Queen Mary at Houghton Hall, home of Sybil, Lady Cholmondeley, (Marchioness of Cholmondeley), who was a friend and later travel companion of Stark. Stark had been made a Sister of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem in 1949. She recorded wearing "my little white cross of St. John beside" the "black and ruby pendant" of her LL.D., at the Glasgow University ceremonies, which apparently extended over several days. (Letters VI: 231) Normally spelt "Benghazi". Stewart Perowne, who was Stark's husband, was working as British Adviser to the government in Benghazi and Stark lived with him there briefly in 1950-1951. The post was then abolished and he was without work. Stark's appeals to influential friends to help him to obtain work caused him considerable embarrassment. To her chagrin, he did not appear to want another job. (Postscript to Letters VI: 238-239, 16 July, 1951) Perowne seems to have offered her the kind of marriage she once said she would have enjoyed with W.P. Ker, a Professor at London University (1855-1923). Clearly it did not satisfy her now. Stark made all the efforts, which he either ignored or rebuffed, suggesting that he had been the one to terminate the relationship.

148

doubt it. ' Anyway, time is the alchemist in these things - The uncertainty makes it hard to plan ahead - 1 may very likely spend the winter here (Si will then look for a l o d g e r ^

someone who wants to live quietly & work: I can't afford this house all by myself & am thinking of one person, or even two, to share at 30/- a day (which is just half what they give one as "subsistence allowance" if one lectures, & is a little less than half die expense of two people & a little more than diat of three) - But of course one doesn't know what may have happened by the winter - If you ever want dnis h o m e you know how welcome you are, dear Harry - I wish you were here now to see die loveliness of spring - I am still w a i t i n g l 9 to hear news of your Cookery Book^O: so is E m m a l ^ l Love from Freya -

Casa Freia Asolo, Treviso. 19.4.5122

My dear Harry

So very good to hear from you, & 4 scarves^^ are leaving tomorrow: any you don't want, leave a t . . . . 24 the usual place of course! & 1 will pick them up when 1 come - We thought better to send, as you are in a hurry & if you want one exactly like that of last year, it will take a fortnight to make: but of course will gladly do it - They have gone up a bit 1 fear as the price of silk is risen like everything else alas -1 have been buying wool to put by!25

I am ^ about the cookery book - very injudicious of Jock -1 hope you are trying someone else ' I can't bear the thought of losing all those recipes - Also sorry for the delay abt your home. I think of being through London about 14th to 19th, but that is too rushed & 1 hope to come South as a Doctor in the second half of July & have a month or 6 weeks in England -1 hope you will be about?

This was one of Stark's life-long dreams, which never came about, but she never ceased to yearn for it. This seems to have been an oblique proposition of marriage to Sir Harry. If it was, she was disappointed. Neither he, nor her other friends wanted to keep her. He visited her occasionally. Stark continued her sentence, by writing along the right-hand edge of the page, from the bottom to the top of the page. She did this frequently. Sir Harry had written a cookery book. The Tenth Muse, which John Murray (Jock), Stark's own publisher, and friend, had declined. It was published elsewhere, three years later. Stark's cook at Asolo - an old family retainer, either had a temperamental nature or a difficult job. The date apparently reads 19.4.57, but it is possible to see that the top of her five and the stroke of her one unite, forming a figure seven. Stark's mother had started a small silk weaving business in Asolo. Stark eventually sold it, or her share of it, to Caroly Piaser, her mother's assistant or partner. Unidentified. It may have been at her publisher's office. It seems from this that Stark was far more involved in the actual running of the silk factory than she ever admitted publicly.

149

18

19

20

21 22

23

24 25

I have written to Stewart - & we are remaining on a good friendly basis I hope, no

morg. No good to pretend diings are when they aren't - They can perhaps become so if he

wants it later - but I feel much more peaceful now it is settled. So I plan to be a lot in

Asolo! Love dear Harry from Freya.

Asolo. 14.5.51.26

My dear Harry, What a nice, understanding^? letter you wrote me. A strike kept it till it

was too late to catch you before May 28di, & also my dates were a little uncertain - but

they are more fixed to arrive in Paris (Hotel Metropolitan Rue Cambon 8) on June Sth^S

(St to reach London on June 12th. Honours are falling upon me ' for I get the Sykes

Memorial Medal^^ from the R Central Asian Society on June 13di. What a pity it is that

honours don't come first in my priorities of values, nice though they are. What I so much

prefer is fun - kind & affectionate.^^

Stewart's reaction was what you might expect - He agreed all along the line & goes on

pretending to himself that I never said anything at all. Anyway it is off my conscience

now ' & I will try, my dear Harry, to keep the Arabic side open & will go out for 3 months

or so this winter & see how it goes. But it really does depend on him now -

How lovely to think of you here en pension - I will see you I hope in London - I shall be

at Jenny Cliffords^ ^ The Albany Flat K5 till the 18th when I go to Scotland - But of

course it is going to be a frantic rush in London, till I return in August when it should be

quiet as few people will be there -

Will you give me a ring?

Much love from Freya -

26 Date reads 14.5.57. 27. The word, written at the end of the sentence, did not fit into the space, and the last part of it

encroaches into the space between the line and the one below. 28. She had lunch with friends at the British Embassy. Desse offered to make her dresses at cost:

"ruches of lace, cascades of frills everywhere", and Mme Gres ordered silk scarves from Stark's silk factory. (Letters Vh 226-227) Stark favoured a flamboyant style of dress.

29. Stark had done no exploration since 1938, thirteen years previously.

30. She greatly enjoyed the honours and the ceremonial surrounding their award. 31 . She stayed with Stark and Perowne in Bridgetown in March, 1948.

150

Such improvements here: a double door & porch, & then revolving writing desk o r d e r e d ^ 2 i Of course I will assets to Mr Wright.^^

Edinburgh' train to Newcastle 7.7.5

My dear Harry

This mingy little bit of paper is all I have to send before turning off into the wilds of Northumberland^^ - It is merely to say that I am on the way South & hope to see you soon, in die middle of the weeks, in London - Jock is giving me a party on the 17th: will you be about then & able to come? 1 shall be staying with him in Hampstead from the 16th - (no. in the book).

I leave on August the 22 not for Asolo which is let^^, but for La Mortola to stay with my n i e c e ^ 7 , Stewart shd be coming for a ^ short leave. There will be 2 days in Paris on the way (St a green hat^^, which I hope you will be admiring before too long. But my American dollars have gone back on me, & if by any lucky chance, Peter still has friends it wd be very lucky & kind indeed, - (but this not so essential as that he should make any uncomfortable effort for it.) 1 hope for news of your cookery book? And of yourself? 1 am now a full Dr & the gown & cap very becoming. I will tell you all about it - it was delightful. Have been in the Western Highlands^^ since. Love from Freya.

Made by Cadona , of Via Canova, Asolo. Presumably she mean t d:ie man in her life at the t ime of death. Was this offered as an inducement to Sir Harry to marry her? The re is a correct ion to the date, so that it actually reads '7.7.51 [51]'. S h e spen t t he weekend with the Geoffrey Youngs. Stark had first ment ioned Geoffrey Young as o n e of t he wounded officers while she was serving for a few weeks as a voluntary nursing assistant (V.A.D.) in t he closing stages of the First World W a r at the Villa Tren to , in Italy, where George Trevelyan's ambulance brigade unit operated. Young was presently involved in a sea and mounta in school for young people. (Letters VI: 237) Aso lo was expensive to run and Stark let it dur ing her travels for as long as she could. S h e sometimes records staying with friends, or relatives, whilst waiting for her house to be free.

^7. Stark had given La Mortola to Cici (Costanza) Boido, Vera's daughter, and Stark's niece, wi th the proviso t h a t S t a rk should re ta in cer ta in rights to t he place. Boido had ev iden t ly been unenthusias t ic about a gift with strings. (Letters VII: 50)

A line has been wri t ten and deleted. It reads: "short leave. It would be a S.1..1 if you or". Stark's outrageous Parisian hats had always been a talking point , no t necessarily as admiring as she bel ieved, a m o n g people . She favoured the c o n c e a l m e n t of nearly invisible scars and he r acknowledged lack of personal beauty. She was the guest of Lionel and Mary Smith , of Baghdad days. H e too was a friend of W.P . Ker. She described h im as an informal man, when he worked as Adviser to the Ministry in Baghdad. Despite this observat ion, it was he who dissuaded her from travelling around wi thout a suitable female escort. (Beyond Euphrates: 152) He later stayed with her in Asolo, in 1931.

151

c /o John Murray.

Delighted with theatre on 23rd. Say when & where - ? Love (fearful hasre) Freya.

1 1 . 8 . 5 1 . 4 2

Dearest Harry

If this is as you like, will you post

It was such fun to see that new little treasure in London <St I enjoyed die Armenian &

Syrian coins immensely & told S. R u n c i m a n . 4 4 He knew of, but had never seen them -

I hope you enjoy your cure more dian I do mine45 , will send news & hope to hear yours. Love from Freya.

Oxford. 24.2.52.

There is a great deal of wear & tear as S I have separated. You will be s u r p r i s e d ^ ^ . I

hope to keep it amicable - S still wants to come to Asolo as a guest - but not till A p r i H ? : I

go on & get accustomed to being myself again (Mrs F. S t a r k ^ S I think) - I hope you will

come to Asolo often & for long49 - Very much love from Freya.

This must be 1951, as in 1957, she left London on 22nd July. 42. This must be 1951, as Stark was in Crete in August, 1957. 43. Unidentified, but perhaps a scarf or other item from the silk factory. 44. Stephen Runciman wrote historical books, among others about Byzantium and the Crusades. 45. This may be a reference to unorthodox medical cures which were resorted to by those who over-

indulged, including Stark. 46. Stark had been in Paris from November 1951 to February 1952 with Perowne, who was a delegate

to the United Nations conference on Arab affairs. 47. Her estranged husband did not come. Instead he sent a letter of recrimination. (Letters Vh 264)

She wrote frequent letters, cajoling him, but they were always unsuccessful. 48. The "Mrs" is an indication that Stark enjoyed the status which marriage conferred. 49. Despite the pressing invitation, he seems to have made infrequent visits and perhaps rented part of

the house on one occasion only.

152

I Tatti 50 Settignano Florence. 13.3.52.

My dearest Harry

I am just breathing again after the rush of London and 5 days in Asolo full of jobs: & am

here now till my house is free on April 1st: then I stay there till mid July - delighted to

welcome you: & plan to linger in Zante in Greece through to August & reach Smyrna

about mid (or a little earlier) September. I have collected 1100 dollars, and I think I

might with economy & if the weather keeps fine, stay round about those Anatolian coasts

till the end of the year -

These are all the plans I have, and 1 hope some of yours coincide. Let me know about

Easter Island^! -1 hope it may come off anyway and shall be around Apr to July -

Stewart is in Ireland, and not coming to Asolo this year - Next year I hope we may get

back again & build a better and more solid foundation, as good friends - I feel sure now

that it is done that it was right & very relieved (Si very sad; Bless you dear Harry. What

about Asolo in June? Yr Freya^^,

Casa Freia Asolo (Treviso) Italy. 25.5.52.

My dear Harry -

How nice to think you are back on the right side of the Atlantic again - Shall I see you

before I leave for Zante^^ (Rosemary & Dino^" ) and then Turkey? I leave about August

1st, & shall be more or less alone here & delighted to see you if you come any time before

July 10th, when I go for a little mountain-air to a place called Solda beyond Meran - Or

why not come here & continue there: I don't know it, but it sounds good <St the Jim

Rose's^^ are joining me there for a fortnight's walking about -

The home of the American art historian and man of letters, Bernard Berenson. 51

52

53

54

55

Sir Harry visited Easter Island in 1952.

Stark's closures have become increasingly intimate as she woes Sir Harry.

Greek Island.

Rosemary and Dino Bultzo were friends of Stark. Jim Rose was Director of the International Press Institute in Zurich. (Letters VII: 52, note 23) He had been literary editor of the Observer.

153

I am feeling very ill after that cure^^, & it seems to have driven the poor overworked liver to go on strike altogether: I suppose it will settle down again but I hope never to have to do anything so revolutionary again -

If given a long time to diink it over, I can manage to say quite a lot of diings in Turkish: if only you wd. come here, I would practice on you!

Very much love dear Harry

from Freya -

Stewart is still in England & has no job^^ which is very worrying - Tell me how you find him ' I still hope there may be a new start all over again on a friendly basis!

As from c/o British Consulate Smyrna.^® 1.9.52.

My dear Harry - I am shocked to see the date of your letter - but you were just off for 4 weeks of Music & Mountains so 1 hope this will reach you not too long after your return -TTie real reason for this delay is that, even now, my plans are just as vague as ever^^: but I have at least settled on the above address as most likely to find me for the next two months.

I shall be based on Smyrna, & later perhaps on Adana, & don't plan to go to Stambul at all. But that is as much as I can say before arriving & seeing what it is all like -1 will write again later when 1 know more -

If & when you do come, you should find me in Smyrna or Adana, making little excursions

of a few days at a time -

You were remembered in Zante where 1 spent a fortnight with Rosemary Bultzo - poor Dino being in Athens with a job: no one, including his mother, thinks he will keep it long, but Rosemary is full of optimism & affection & only afflicted by the Mediterranean

Stark was a hypochondriac, believing herself to be a delicate semi-invalid. H e obtained one in June, 1952, working with refugees, {letters VI: 271)

Despite the grand address, she was staying in a small pension, found for her by the consul, Eddie Wilkinson. (Letters VII: 1) Her plans were not vague. Stark was engineering an invitation to go yachting, and was unwilling to commit herself until certain. See letter 24.9.52.

154

difficulty of Mothers-in-law always in the foreground - I liked N....60 B. & think her position as a Pelican to Dino not too enviable; but it is one of those cleavages between the Northern & Mediterranean worlds which all history & time can't bridge -

I do hope to see you & so hear all abt. the great voyage.^l A triumph! to have accomplished at last.

Dear love from Freya.

Smyrna c/o Brit Consul. 13.9.52.

My Dear Harry -

1 think I am fairly clear now, to be able to make plans for the 2nd half of October - What do you think of making a centre at Soke, near Aydin, where it seems there is a hotel, & visiting the promontory of Miletus & Priene? 1 thought of spending a week there & at Ephesus ' 1 am trying to see all the places mentioned by Herodotus: they lead one on in a charming variety, some having disappeared altogether, but all in lovely country: & 1 thought eventually of making a little book to be a companion to H e r o d o t u s A f t e r Priene 1 thought of going south into Cilicia -1 think I could make a date for Oct 15th: but if 1 were delayed, you could be in Smyrna visiting Pergamum the things in the north? But it is quite a business to get rooms here as NATO^^ is coming, so let me know & 1 will fix a room in my little pension for you. I am going to Ankara^"^ for 10 days but letters will follow me - Have had a wonderful time seeing Pergamum & obscure little towns in heavenly bays!

Love firom Freya.

Illegible, presumably a member of the Bultzo family. H e had gone to Easter Island and San Fernandez. N o t h i n g came of the plan to write about Herodotus. She may have been influenced by Perowne, who wrote a series of historically-based books. 2 ,500 North Atlantic Treaty Organization ( N A T O ) Americans were diere. {Letters VII: 10)

64 She stayed with the archaeologist Seton Lloyd, Director of the British Institute of Archaeology in Ankara (1949-1961) . He and Stark were both present at the seige of the Baghdad Embassy in May, 1941.

155

c/o British Consulate Smyrna - 24-9.52.

Dearest Harry -

I came back y d ^ from Ankara & at last am able to write much more definitely. The fact is diat David Balfour^^, die Consul Gen. here, has been suggesting my joining his cruise down the coast, zigzagging from Greek Islands to Halicamassus & South: it was not certain & not to be mentioned but now it is final & I start tomorrow: it should take 3 weeks & I diought of dropping off on the way back (as I wrote to you), & staying in the hotel at Soke which is easily reached from here: if one goes to Heraklea, & Hieropolis, it wd mean about a fortnight there; anodier ten days in Smyrna; & then I thought of going to Cilicia & on from there to Cyprus where I am invited for Christmas - how does this suit you? It would be good if you could join, at any or every point. The weather just becoming perfect now -1 hoped to find news from you, but the posts are very slow: & now nothing will reach me till I actually get to Soke: so if you come, you must contact Mr Wilkinson the consul here in Smyrna, and he will know all there is to know about me, & also help to find you a room if you have a day or two in Smyrna - The only thing that will reach me is a telegram: so please send it if you are^^ coming, <St then 1 will not linger by the way. Love Freya.

c/o British Consulate Smyrna 29.10.52.

My Dear Harry,

Mr Wilkinson sent me on your note, & it found me at Fethiye (ancient Telmessos) on my emergence from the farthest coast of Lycia. We got as far round the southern cape as Phaleris, now a lovely lonely & romantic bay called Tekrova, where there are neither roads nor houses, but a few black tents of nomads with their horses grazing, & the ancient street - paved with great slabs the steps of its palaces beside them - running along under

Her journeys on his yacht formed the background to her three Turkish books. She described him as a man who "ran through a number of religions, ending as a Greek Orthodox priest in the war, and now has secularised himself." (Letters VII: 4) Balfour's wife did not apparently accompany dieir expeditions: "Louise Balfour is amused because the whole of this small British colony has been thinking the worst of our trip, and she says that the fact of my being well beyond the years of discretion [she was almost 60] has no effect whatever, as seventy is young in this village..." (Letters VII: 25-26) Stark had evidently not known him for long: "I suggested to him how rash he had been to invite an unknown woman on a month's trip in a tiny boat.." (Letters VII: 26) They were apparently harmonious but he appears to have been indulgent.

Stark had run out of space and completed the sentence by writing up the right hand margin.

156

bushes & trees. I have never had such a month of beautiful sights one on top of the other

- 1 hope my letter - sent I believe from Rhodes - may have reached you. What a pity you

are not here to start next week on a fortnights^? wandering about die Meander valley.

On 28th Nov. I have booked a passage to Cypnis, & then if my life goes according to plan

I shall settle in Asolo from about mid January till June, when I hope for England. Why

wd you not come & do your writing there? And if you will give me 2 hours of Turkish a

day, I will take you at a reduced ratell^S My Turkish has not got on at all on board D.

Balfour's boat widi a Greek skipper; but it was die chance of a lifetime to see that coast, &

very difficult to get at except by sea. Did I tell you how we also visited the islands -

Patmos, Kalymnos, Cos, Rhodes & Castillorizo? But dear Harry, diere is still the whole of

Pamphilya & Cilicia to be seen - so I hope one plan may yet come off -

I shall be with Hilda Ridler^^ for part of the time in Cyprus, so her address will find me -

Stewart I hear does well, but does not write is I think very distant in his thoughts.

Time must arrange it all. 70 Very much love dear Harry from Freya

British Embassy,71 Rome, 9.1.53.

My dear Harry

1 am on my way to Asolo - getting there on 26th from c/o B. Berenson. I Tatti : Settignano Florence.

Do write to me there & tell me if I shall have the pleasure of your company in February

(so that I may prepare you a nice warm house.) - If you do come, as I hope, will you be an

angel & bring me a very small packet of lily bulbs? It is not a Tree this time. If you can

do so, a card to Messrs W.G. Constable. TTie Lily House, Southborough, Tunbridge

Wells, would produce them in about 10 days, they will send them to you with permit

Stark's punctuation was simple and she rarely used the apostrophe. Despite the double exclamation, Stark was serious. She charged her friends for staying with her. She stayed first with architect Austen Harrison, then with Hilda Ridler, and had a final week at the Dudley Court Hotel, Kyrenia. (Letters VI1: 38-39) She later commented that Perowne was unflatteringly pleased every time they had to part. (Alexander Maitland. The Tower in the Wall. Blackwood: ^inburgh. 1982. p. 74.) She spent ten days at the Embassy and may have been the guest of John and Aliki Russell. John Russell, later. Sir John, was attached to the embassy in Rome, and was later Ambassador in Ethiopia, Brazil and Spain. (Letters VII: 42, note II)

157

& a l l ' & they will still be in time for sowing. I have brought 3 jars of little b e c c a f i c o s 7 2

in Old Commanderia from Cyprus - so you see it is not only the estetica of the garden that is being cared for!

Do come dear Harry -

Yours affly Freya.

Casa Freia Asolo (Treviso) Italy. 8.3.53.

Telephone: Asolo 54.

My dearest Harry

I have just been filling in my card for the St. Johns celebrations on June 20th. I am sure you will be attending, & perhaps we can go together? As I am so rarely about when these events take place, I thought I would see it all from early morning to St Paul's in the afternoon -

Anyway, from the Coronation on right through June I shall be at Mary Wellesley's

(Garrett House 9 Cleveland Row S W I). I look forward to seeing you. I shall write to

V i t a 7 3 at Sissinghurst & " c o m b i n a r e " ^ ^ the days to fit.

At the moment I am very piano, getting over flue^^ & feeling that all the airs of heaven

visit my poor head much too roughly. It is lovely weather, but straight off the snows: little

daffodils are coming out today, but looking very frileuses -

A very curious thing about Stewart. I got Jock to ask him if he wd like my next vol.76 to

be dedicated to him - as I thought it might be more tactful to change it: but he seemed

very pleased (so Jock says): on the other hand he doesn't write to me, even the merest

politesse: the two things don't hang together - but who can understand what happens

when once these things get twisted? I hope you are not having too worrying a time over

your children's problems? Bon voyage & love from

Freya.

European song birds, eaten as a delicacy, especially in Italy. 73. The writer, the Hon. Victoria Sackvilie-West (1892-1962), who reviewed the first two volumes of

Stark's autobiography, very favourably, for the Spectator. To combine, to put together. (It.)

7^. Elsewhere she spelt it "flu". 76. The Coast of Incense (1953) was dedicated to Perowne.

158

L'Arma. La Mortola Ventimiglia. 16.8.53.

My dear Harry

Is all well with you? 1 hope so - This is only to send a greeting & good wishes -

I am back in die Timeless Mediterranean world: bathing, eating, sleeping. I do work till noon however & the book is half way through ^ I hope to finish it sometime by N o v e m b e r . 7 7 Perhaps you will dien be my Lodger? Let me know in good time - 1 do hope your operation's is not being too troublesome -

Much love from

Freya -

It was a pleasant day in your country retreat -

Did I tell you I got my ribbon'^ the day before leaving?

Casa Freia Asolo (Treviso) Italy. 6.10.53.

My dearest Harry

This is to greet you when you emerge -1 hope feeling happy to have it over. Come out as soon as you can after! - You will come, I take it, by train? (& in that case I hope you would face up to a garden-parcel, if I have it sent to you so that you can open it & distribute in your suitcase?) But if by air, I won't even suggest it -

If you let me know in good time I will try <Si arrange someone to have the taxi from Venice, - far better for you than bus - If not, perhaps a train to Castelfranco which is only 12 miles for the taxi? I will have the house nice & warm.

So many good wishes from

Freya

T h e book she refers to was published as Ionia: A Quest. It was given to her publisher in December, 1953. She wrote in early January 1954 that an unknown Professor from N e w College had sent her "eighteen sheets of closely written suggestions and corrections for my book four days ago...the typist and I together made a sad little havoc of our references." (Letters VII: 62)

78. For a hernia. (Letters VII: 54) 79. She received die CB.E . in July, 1953.

159

c/o E. Gath. HardySO Beyrout 27.3.54.

Dearest Harry

All is well so far & 1 hope to be continuing on Monday to spend 2 days with the

Altounians^l. There is a good & not expensive train to Aleppo & that seems an easy

jumping off place to get across the border - Also, if you change your dollars here for

Turkish lira you gain about 40% on exchange (1 thought these items might be useful for

you?) 1 diink with such pleasure of all our jaunts^^ & wish you were continuing & not

diverging to the P. Gulf - but hope to see you skimming across in May - Meanwhile, if you

do hear of anyone for Asolo, here are the details^^:

L70 p. month, inclusive of the 3 servants - cook, maid & gardener: so that the tenant only

has food, electricity, telephone, & heating (scarcely needed now) to pay for: & if there is a

shortage of currency 1 could lend that against English money this year: the rent too can be

paid in England - The accomodation^"^ you know - 4 rooms each w. bath, <SL 3 sitting

rooms ' The Moretons^^ had a cocktail party so I was able to give him your letter myself -

How nice they are! Beyrout seems just as social as Kyrenia except that people do seem to

have something to do in the morning! I am now going up to Chris. Scaife's^^ house in

the hills for the day - Much love dear Harry. Bon Voyage. Do write to Adana, Osmanli

Bankasi. Yr Freya.

The Honourable Ralph Edward Gathome-Hardy. He had worked for the Brodierhood of Freedom in Egypt during the war, and was responsible for winding up the organization in 1952. (Dust in the Lion's Paw: 111) Dr Mrs Ernest Altounian. "F.S. had first stayed with Dr. Ernest Altounian (who had been a friend of T.E. Lawrence) and his wife in 1939". (Letters VII: 73, note 43) Sir Harry spent time was with her in Cyprus in February, 1954 She had written a similar letter detailing costs etc. to her publisher, suggesting that he should run it and that she should live in it in April, 1953. (Letters VII: 48-49) Both rejected the suggestion, as did some seven or eight friends. Stark omitted the second "m". The house was very large for its single occupant and three servants. This combined with her promises to heat it well for Sir Harry are sufficient reasons for her continual cries of poverty. Unidentified and perhaps part of the "Embassy set". Christopher Scaife was a war-time colleague, with overall responsibility for the Arab Brotherhood of Freedom which had involved Stark in Egypt and Baghdad. (Letters VII: 72, note 41)

160

Cumhuriyet Oteli Antalya. 21.4.54.

Dearest Harry -

It is a great pity we are just missing! D. Balfour has suggested a descent of the W. coast again87, putting in at Samos & all the places missed last year, including the fortresses of Caria ^ & so I must get to Smyrna by May 1st - & shall not be back here till the 26th or so ' But you will love Antalya; I think; die little town with [die] greatest charm of all I have seen; & a v. good Locanta^S (Antara Lokantasi) & taxis shd. not charge more dian 35 krs a klm. This may be useful knowledge if you go to Aspendos etc. I have been to see all Alexanders'89 haunts except Selge which is 2 days by mule & the weather v. uncertain -But I got to Termessos^O in spite of its distance, & what a place: an enchanted site up there in its cliff cradle. From the seats of its theatre you look slap down a narrow gorge to Antalya, 3,000 below!

I hope to hear from you in Smyrna. - Will you tell Tom^l that his little parcel is waiting for him at the Osmanli Bank? My Turkish takes me, incorrectly but enough to get by with ' but Bazaran^^ optimistic in thinking I could cope with Macbeth!

I think we might look at Konya together next year? I feel I have had enough of solitary travelling^^: it is not suited to this country anyway, for the Turk doesn't seem to have the liveliness which makes the Arab a constant pleasure, & one longs for someone to talk to "pour les idees generales".^'^ But 1 can't tell you what beauty I have seen - that Southern coast road with its cliffs & forests & solitude!

Very much love dear Harry from Freya.

Stark had a quarrelsome nature. She had been worried about the trip, complaining in March: "Patrick Kinross [another travel writer] threatens to sail with David Balfour, which would wreck my jaunt with him as one can't have two authors in one boat!" (Letters VII: 67) Lord Kinross went on a separate journey, writing Europa Minor (c. 1955), also published by John Murray. Restaurant. When Stark remembered to use the apostrophe, it was sometimes incorrectly placed, as here. Elsewhere spelt "Telmessos". Unidentified. Presumably the parcel contained goods from the silk factory. Unidentified. Despite her reputation as a fearless traveller. Stark had never enjoyed solitary travel. "For general ideas" or gossip. Stark never experienced the same rapport with the Turks as she did with the Arabs, for a variety of reasons. There was no mystique about the country for her and she found Turkish winters to be wet and depressing. Turkey did not stand for escape from earlier emotional problems as Arabia had, and her Turkish was never very fluent. Also she seems so accustomed to surrounding herself with people that solitary travel seemed an even more uninviting prospect than previously.

161

88 89 90 91 92 93 94

S S Agamemnon on way to Athens. 1.8.54.

My dearest Harry

I am as you see on the way home & hope to be settled in Asolo by mid September - Is diere a chance of seeing you there? I think of sitting quite quietly <SL working hard -taking myself & my typewriter to Sicily for die two coldest months, but otherwise not stirring till this time 1955 - So I hope I may see you? - There is too much to tell in a letter - & I think I have material for 2 books at least! I don't even want to be away again for quite so long at a time; one ends by not being able to take anything in any more! The most exciting of the last bit of the journey was the descent from Van^^ j y Dyarbekir, Mardin, Nisibin to Mosul. Do you know those frontier fortresses? Hie walls of Dyarbekir, <Si the very early churches, (Si that wonderful descent into the cornlands of Assyria? I would so much like to learn a little more about the dates of all those buildings - Baghdad was almost unbearably hot after the snowy tops of Van: 1 only stayed 6 days, & then had 3 days going from Mosul to Akra and Ser Amadiya - then a week in Aleppo with a visit to St Simion & one or two of the ruined Greco-Roman cities, & then a fortnight in Lebanon ' It was 11 years since I last saw all these regions, & like an enchantment to find them still there, quite different & yet the same -

I wonder if you have found time to enquire after that list of books you kindly offered to look into for me? I shall have to start seriously to get hold of books^^ when 1 get back & it wd be so very helpful if you have been able to find anything -

Have you yet heard abt your Pinturicchio?^^ And is there anything at all cheerful about Peter^® and all that trouble? I would love to hear news of you. Love from Freya.

Shall be seeing Rosemary & Dino [Bultzo] in Athens!

Derek Hill, an artist, had accompanied her, but had left. She commented to her publisher: "If anybody had been as beastly to me as 1 was to Derek..." (Letters VII: 106) Many previous companions had suffered accordingly. She had resented Hill's plan to keep a diary and to publish it. (Letters VII: 100) All of her later books required extensive researches.

97 Perhaps a painting by the Italian artist of the Umbrian school, whose real name was Bernardino di Betto ?1454-1513. TTie reference is obscure, but Stark's friend, the American art historian Bernard Berenson, lived in Florence and may have been involved in Sir Harry's interest in this Italian painter, since he authenticated old Italian works, and Sir Harry did not write books on art. Perhaps a son, since she had earlier reported that his children were giving trouble.

162

Asolo, 7.10.54.

My Dearest Harry,

How is it that you have not heard from me for so long? I can't think when I wrote, but my conscience was so calm 1 feel it cannot have been very long ago - I am back, but still smothered in all the diings diat clamour for attention after an absence - & September has been full of people, as it always is near Venice - Now we are quieting down - 1 have 3 articles 1 must write, & then hope to be free to settle to my new book -

1 do look forward to the lOxh Muse & shall order her, & hope you may soon come to autograph her for me - lonia^^ too is out on her own in the world -

As for P r o b s t a s i s ^ O O , j^g o f f ^ j - g ^he book I was least anxious about, (Si I think I will wait (being very broke at die moment) & look into it in a Library before deciding to buy it -But I will send a card direct not to bother you further with it -

I do want to have news of your Perugino

And when do you come to Asolo? I am here till just before Christmas & then plan two months in the South: then back here & not move till late in the summer with the book, I hope, written - It is very pleasant to be at home again - I am keeping this for a photograph or two which shd. arrive any day, of you in Cyprus. When you come you must look at the rest see if you want any: there are so many! Love fr. Freya.

P.S. 20 O c t ' The photographs have only just come - another note from you, dear Harry ' but with no news of your arrival soon - as I shd like - Here are the three where you appear to most advantage: there is a fine British look of unconscious Authority in the group which I hope they will all recognize!

I asked to review the 10th Muse for the Observer together with a (I am sure) far inferior book on Italian Food: but they have sent only the latter - Can it be that your publishers hadn't sent them a copy? Love dear Harry from

Freya.

Stark's latest book on Turkey and one of a trilogy. TT:iis rendering appears to resemble what Stark wrote. Perhaps he was an antiquarian bookseller, since she had enlisted Sir Harry's assistance on a book hunt for historical sources. The word is only semi-legible, since she had written over the word several times in an effort to achieve the correct spelling. She may have been referring to an Italian painter.

163

Asolo. 5.7.55.102

Dearest Harry

How sorry I am about this gout of yours - I hope you are safely tucked in your 'cure' now,

& about to emerge resuscitated - It is a horrid Sword of Damocles, - but there is

Something in having somediing the matter with one to which one knows a cure! I went

to Milan to get a 2nd opinion on my o p e r a t i o n l 0 3 ^as told 'on no account' that it wd.

only made it worse: & am being sent for 15 days (on July 20th) to Sirmionel04 on L.

Garda. I wish we were 'curing' together: it will be very boring to sit alone in a Hotel Des

Termes!

I went to Milan for this consultation & spent two evenings there, one seeing Gigi (by

Colette) - quite charmingly acted & the other at the Cinerama which I thought quite

interesting but presented with the American 'blare' which spoils anything - What I really

enjoyed was the superb Etruscan exhibition -

W e still have a daily thunderstorm or shower, & my garden party will soon have to wait

till September. But it is lovely in between; & all the lilies are out -

Ever so much love dear Harry - It was so nice to have you here.

Yours affly

Freya

Yes, that vulgar little article was by D. Hill: just the sort of thing he wd. have written

about me!

Her notepaper was headed: "Benghazi, Cyrenaica", where Stark had earlier lived briefly with Stewart Perowne. Stark was suffering from sinus trouble.

104. Sirmione was the town where Catullus had lived. It had a hot spring, which attracted invalids for the cure. Stark had always enjoyed illness, and unorthodox cures, as well as the more usual ones.

164

Asolo 8.3.57

Dearest Harry

Your telegram came but your letter was delayed by a strike so 1 did not know where to

send your post on to you or where to write & tell you how sad & disappointed I am - But

there it is - it wd. have been a long way round for a fortnight I suppose - It has been, & is,

so lovely here - 1 am sorry you are missing it. I think there is something in a northern

spring that the E Mediterranean misses with all its beauty. Elizabethl*^^ gone off to

Corsica but I feel 1 must stick to my work, & took two days off only, for the Valkyrie^^^

with which I was enraptured greatly moved: the scenery & whole presentation is

splendid - 1 wished 1 could have afforded them all, but have determined to take my first

chance & go to Beyreuth!

Victor^^^ also is very disappointed at not seeing you sends his love - He has a touch of

bronchitis so has not been up for 2 or 3 weeks - 1 have had pleasant visits - from Diana

Cooper w. John Julius^^® and the Presses; Pam Ruthven^^^ who may be coming to Crete

with me & anyway is entrusting her son to my godmotherly care - & now I have another

godchild whose father you may have known - Petra Loxley: such a pretty nice girl, who is

to be presented next month.^^^ It is nice to be able to do a little for these young creatures

as they come along, & let them see the civilized world: she was almost delirious over

Venice .^^^

Perhaps Elizabeth Monroe (Mrs Neame) of the Middle East Department, Ministry of Information, during the war. She later reviewed volumes of Stark's letters for the T.L.S. Stark mentioned in February, 1957 that she had had visits from Cairo friends. (Letters VII: 203) Wagner's opera, at the Beyreuth festival. Victor Cunard (d. 1960). A friend from Middle East days, now living in Venice, who had served throughout the war in the Political Intelligence Department of the Foreign Office. (Letters VII: 58, footnote 32.) Lady Diana Cooper, actress and author, wife of Duff Cooper and her son, John Julius Norwich, the historical writer. Stark mentions staying with Lady Diana when her husband was British Ambassador in Paris.

109. She was the widow of the first Earl of Cowrie's eldest son; Viscountess Ruthven of Canberra after his death (1942), until remarriage. She had worked with Stark during the war in Cairo. Later Mrs Derek Cooper (1952).

110. Presumably as a debutante at Court. Stark often referred to her books as her debutante daughters and to any anxiety as comparable to that of a debutante making her first assay into the world. Clearly the notion of debutantes delighted her, suggesting that she herself would very much have liked to have been presented at court, as many of her friends had been.

111. Her pupils were less enthusiastic. "It was, remembers one, like 'travelling with your tutor', formidable, somewhat unnerving but always exhilarating. There was much laughter." (Moorehead: 127) Malise Ruthven, one of the godchildren reports: "My own experience, travelling up the Central Euphrates with her and Mark Lennox-Boyd in 1962 was not entirely happy." (Ruthven: 136)

165

I hoped to hear so much more - so please write dear Harry in full & intimate detail -Victor & I think it was vy u to turn S. from his non-U idea of coming to Venice?!^^^ Michael Stewart^l^ has been through - not very friendly efforts of Turkey & Pakistan. The Peakes are due on April 8th & the Cahils on the 4th so it will be a squash & I am trying to get die book on to die paper before. Let me have news & an address & much love firom

Freya.

& Greetings to your host if it is die Laycock I met in Cairo.

Asolo 27.7.57

My dearest Harry

I am sorry about the gout - Do they give you one of the many new things against the pain? It is miserable, is there no real cure? Poor Rupert Neville^ was laid up with it when I went there for the Glynebourne^^^ week-end which was enchanting. I saw Falstaff & Ariadne, both new to me, & wonderful.

My royal lunch was as pleasant as anything could be that is so awe-inspiring: it is rather alarming to be the only woman present except the Queen! She went down the line (only about 8 guests) & then came talked to me: they had just been to Glynebourne, & she said it was rather distressing to have no carpet in the box, so that every sound, even a programme falling, echoed loudly. I asked her whether the story was true about Mr Christie's dropping his glass eye as he showed her in, & she made a little gesture of impatience & said: "no: those are the papers!" "But", she said, "he did ask me in the middle of dinner whether his eye was in straight: rather a disconcerting question to have to answer suddenly, isn't it?" 1 told her about Archie WavelP^^ and his glass "eye", which he lent to his ADC who could not get one during the war, when he was anxious to look

Stark was often incoherent on the subject of her husband. Later Sir Michael Stewart. Visited by Stark when Charge d'Affaires in Peking; he was also Ambassador in Athens. Lord and Lady Rupert Neville were friends with whom she sometimes spent the weekend, at Uckfield House, Sussex. They discussed Egyptian affairs. Stark always spelt it in this way. It should be Glyndebourne.

116. Field Marshall Archibald Percival Wavell (1893-1950). Stark had regarded Lord Wavell as a friend ever since he was Commander-in-Chief, Middle East, 1939-1941. Stark had worked for Lady Wavell and the W.V.S. (Women's Voluntary Service) in India in 1945.

166

well in the eyes of the pretty Wavell daughter. Then we went in, & I was set between Prince Philip & Martin Charkiss (whom I know) - with Benjamin Britten beyond within reach to talk to. - I can't tell you how easy & interesting Prince Ph. was to talk to: one would remember him anywhere, he has so lively & original a mind - We began on modem art ' he told me diat he was being shown a room full of designers drawing patterns for dress materials, & saw one rather like a heap of spillikins - & looking out of die window noticed diat it was taken direct from the straight lines of the scaffolding round Big Ben: all these modem cubes & square lines come, he concluded, from the brains of city folk who see straight streets & houses. 1 told him about die student at the atelier in Paris^^^ who asked me if I really s ^ the fat woman we were drawing, 'all in curves', & brought me his own version - all cubes. 'And do you really s ^ her like that?' said 1. 'Yes' said he. 'How sad for you.' We then talked of his tour - , he told me how the people in the far islands make their own microcosm & like to come back to it if ever they venture away-And he deplored the sameness of men especially, how they will wear fantastic clothes but only if they are a uniform, & grow timid as soon as they have to do things on their own. And 1 asked about Gordonstoun^ where the individual is encouraged - & he told me how he had wished to learn carpentering, & to build a pigsty — (Si had been sent out to leam to do so. He has an extremely narrow, quick & nervous face, not handsome, but as if it were almost too alive to remain inside itself so to say: while the Queen, walking slowly & very composed but a little timid among her guests, seemed to keep all her vitality under control so that only an observant person would feel it - She ate very little - for her beautiful little figure no doubt - & after lunch led us to the next room with columns, looking out onto the lawns, with the marvellous service of Meissen china in the corner niches: & then she walked from one to the other with a little pool of silence falling around her — how hard to be royal & to have always to begin the conversation! - till she ended up with me again, & told me she was having an Asolo dress^^^ made & they left -Prince Philip wishing me luck on my joumey - We then had a little more conversation & wd have liked more as they were all interesting: Edward Boyle was there, talking about Istanbul & the charming Vice Chancellor of Oxford - Masterman; & the airman (Cheshire) who has founded all those homes. 1 thought it wd amuse you to hear all this, dear Harry, must now finish, as I am in the midst of packing - Delighted if you come in winter - I hope to be back some time after 15th November when the house is free. But

^ Stark studied drawing at Julian's Atelier, where her parents had studied, whilst her husband was a delegate on Arab Affairs at a Conference in 1952-3.

1 The school in Scotland attended by both Prince Phillip and Prince Charles. ^ Presumably from the silk factory.

167

shall not stay long as I have Xmas with the Murrays. Desiree^^^ too will be going to her

mother, but her plans seem fluid so she could probably arrange to coincide here with you

if she knows in time. You must write to her - As for me, I plan to be in Crete till Aug. 22

(Hotel Lato: Aghios Nikolaus): then c/o Michael Stewart Ankara, Embassy - who will

forward letters. I plan to make Mardin my centre & move around from there - Then

Baghdad, c/o Embassy, probably in October - & possibly may end up in Riyadh if things

have not blown up by then - Anyway back here in 2nd half of November

London was a terrific rush - Only one meal at home so many odd things to do as well -but great fun.

Dear Harry, I do hope this reaches you with your gout in the past & forgotten - Love & au revoir from

Freya

Excellent, beautiful book of Larry Durrell's^^l with such nice things about you in it -Teddy M. Drake coming to Asolo tomorrow.

Casa Freia Asolo (Treviso) Italy. 18. 11. 57

Dearest Harry

1 landed yesterday and am in bed with a bad cold.^^^ but Desiree is typing this, first of all

to tell you how glad I was to find a letter, and secondly, how very sorry that it contained

such bad news of your health. 1 do hope Tonga^^^ will put it right, and anyway it must be

a good idea to be out of the north European winter. 1 am the less sorry that you are not

coming here as 1 am going to be away, but 1 shall be back in Asolo some time in March

and hope to see you then, fit and flourishing on your way back.

Desiree Granville was Stark's current assistant and typist at Asolo. Bitter Lemons. Faber: London. 1957. In it, Durrell had written: "Freya Stark and Sir Harry Luke remain as forever identified in my mind with the place, for each of them had something special to give me", (p. 100) The place referred to was Cyprus (1953-1956). Stark and Sir Harry had met on holiday in 1954 in Cyprus. Durrell's book was dedicated to the architect Austin Harrison with whom Stark had stayed. She appears, unusually, to under-play this illness which she described to her publisher as "the Italian variety of Asiatic 'flu". It had troubled her several times on her travels that summer and autumn. (Letters VII: 234)

123, Sir Harry had been High Commissioner for the Western Pacific (1938-1942) , and had written Queen Salote and her Kingdom (1954) .

168

I had a wonderful first half of a trip, riding in Lycia and bathing in Crete, but after that all

my plans had to be changed because of the Syrian trouble which made any travel near the

frontiers impossible, so I went south to Iraq instead and looked again on Ukhaidar and

Hatra, and Sinjar which I had never seen before. I had a wonderful experience watching

the devil worshippers in dieir remote valley, when diey sacrifice a black bull and dance in

the most glamorous costumes you ever saw. I then spent a fortnight in Baghdad seeing

many old friends, anodier four days in Beirut with Philby and odier friends, a morning in

Alexandria - which looks more squalid than I can tell you, and would evidently love to

have us about againl24. And then four days in Athens to end up widi. I am delighted to

be home again now and hope to be up and about in a day or two.

This had better take my good wishes for Christmas, dear Harry, as goodness knows where you will be in a month's time. My love to you, and may all be very much pleasanter next year. Freya.

Undatedl25

I hope this may reach you, dear Harry, and remind you of last Christmas, bring you

many good wishes for a goutless Year - Two young men^^^ are settled in the 1/2 house &

come amuse us in the evenings, & it is a perfect arrangement so far - Also,

Antonietta^^^ has gone & we are all feeling much happier without her - And I leave for

London in 10 days. 1 have taken a little flat - 11 Lyall St - for 6 weeks from 20th Jan.

look forward to it very much -

Love & good wishes to you from

Freya

also from Desiree.

Stark's Imperialist views on Arab-British relationships surface here, when she adopts the viewpoint that British intervention had been good for Egypt.

125. Stark's activities, as described here, reveal that it was Christmas, 1957.

126, They were John Fleming and Hugh Honour, friends of her publisher. {Letters VII: 2 3 4 )

She was the maid and had got married. She did not get on with the cook. (Letters VII: 2 3 4 )

169

Rowfold. 3.1.58128

Dearest Harry -

I am here for a night with Galium & must send you a greeting as we have been talking of you, & enjoying two of your delicious recipes - Chicken w. pimentos & fish w. raisins! The M a x e s 129 ^ame to dinner a nice young Kit Barclay widi his wife, who is Troutbeck's d a u g h t e r all very agreeable & I wish you were here: but hope you

are enjoying lovely sunshine & pleasant company & that the gout has gone!

I came here by Paris Amsterdam & wonder why one doesn't more often take that easy <Sl delightful route - 1 had only two days & was given enchanting glimpses of Leyden, Hague, & the Amsterdam canals & facades, & then wonderful pictures - Then a lovely Xmas w. all the children (Jock's) - & now New Year at the Wrights. I shall be a week in Oxford & then settle in London at 11 Lvall St S.W.31^1 till the first week in March: & reach Asolo by the 25th, by way of BB & Florence - So let me know if 1 may expect you on your way. Love good wishes from Freya.

l lLyall St SWl 8.2.58.

Dearest Harry

I am so delighted to think of you basking on Pacific beaches and getting well and strong again and all your friends here are glad to hear of it. 1 was talking of you to Lady Elliot who was a Miss Chancellor & spoke so affectionately of you -

I am burning both ends of my little candle as fast as I can, but in another month shall be starting for Asolo, & be there I hope from about March 25th to end of June - Friends will be staying, but I shall be up in my tower^^^ 33 you know, & reading I hope for my Vol.

Perhaps I may see you there?

T h e figure has been altered, and it could be a 6, a 7 or an 8. Her activities suggest 1958. Rowfold may be the home of Michael Wright, one of her diplomatic friends.

129. Unidentified.

Family served as an introduction to the social circle to which Stark had long belonged. 131. t should have read " S . W . I . " 132. T h e tower was in Via Belvedere, Asolo. It was three storeys high and in later years housed Stark's

books and her guests. 133. T h e fourth volume of her autobiography Dust in the Lion's Paw was not published until 1961. She

mentions no specific books connected with it, and was also researching for Riding to the Tigris ( 1 9 5 9 ) , and said: "I will try to look into what 1 have here for a continuation of die autobiography, but can do no more." (Letters VII: 242)

170

1 spent a night at Rowfolds (Si lunched w Galium in London - I love my little flat, it is so

cosy & all the work is done for me except cooking, and as I have had only one meal at

home that doesn't matter -

Love & au revoir dear Harry from Freya.

Asolo 16.5.58

Dearest Harry

It is nice to hear from you but sad that I shall not see you, for I leave here on June 11th &

hope to be away till late October or November. Why do you not have a little interval

between houses in England & take my half-house for a winter? You can be my lodger

while 1 am here, which will probably (inshallah^^'^ & all that) be for Nov. & December (Si-

then again from early March onwards till the summer, & take the half house while I am

away & have no troubles of housekeeping, as Emma although growing far too fat is still

very kind & clever -

I am so glad about your good winter - 1 am looking forward immensely to the trip in the

"Surprise"^^^ (Si have a fine black satin bathing dress for the occasion - 1 only hope no

contretempo may prevent: travel gets more difficult: one now needs a Baptism Certificate

for Lebanon!

Have you seen S's book^^^ & is it good & well received? 1 hope so, but am as vou know

not up in news. 1 am thinking of Traian^^^ as my Roman, but with a general survey of the

frontier & only if 1 can get near it.

Love to you dear Harry

from Freya

(address c/o Michael Stewart Ankara after June 11th.

"God willing". Arabic. Admiral Sir Charles and Lady Lambe had invited her to "help review the Turkish fleet at Marmara." (Letters VII: 2 4 0 ) Stark had had herself baptised a Presbyterian (her father's religion), in 1925, before embarking on her first trip to the Lebanon in 1927. (Traveller's Prelude: 3 3 4 ) She lost the certificate, and "the Padre in Venice refuses to baptise me again". (Letters VII: 243) She was referring to Stewart Perowne's book The Later Herods. ( 1 9 5 8 ) There is no mention of Trajan in her next book, Riding to the Tigris ( 1 9 5 9 ) , where she reports diat: "from here to the Tigris lands I was to be guarded" (p. 85) , so that she had evidently had to change her plans.

171

London 21.12.58.

Dearest Harry,

I think of you in your solitary state & hope you are well & comfortable & enjoying yourself, & being well looked after - Perhaps you get those two young men to play Scrabble with you?139 We had a very easy journey though I had some heavy chaperoning to do ' & now I am off to Cliveden & Ireland tomorrow - Have seen all the Murrays, Sybil C h o l m o n d e l e y l ^ O Catherine Peake & walked into Esther Wrightl41 , but no one else -

I come back to Jock's for New Year & dien to London again on the 13th Jan: so better address c/o Jock till the 28di & dien 30 Chester St. SW. (telephone Sloane 1914)

I think better wait to ask about my letters till I find out exactly which are m i s s i n g !

Jock is now reading the MSS.^"^^

Lots of love dearest Harry,

from Freya.

Asolo. 10.3.59

Dearest Harry

I ought to have written long ago - anyway, <SL particularly when that handsome portfolio arrived with the etchings inside it -1 am so glad to have them & have been putting them this morning in their proper place together with the other books - <SL believe it or not, I seem already to be short of shelves! The reason for my slowness was not only a hectic social life but the falling ill with influenza or whatever this year's pestilence really is. It

It seems that Sir Harry had accepted her suggestion to take her half-house. The two young men referred to here had rented the other half. The Marchioness of Cholmondeley was a friend of Stark. They occasionally travelled together, she gave Stark sums of money to aid her perpetual insolvency, and was the recipient of her confidences with increasing frequency as Stark's elderly friends died. Sir Michael Wright had been Ambassador in Iraq, and Stark had visited him in October 1957. She bumped into Lady Wright in London, who told her that the Iraqi Embassy had been looted "and the whole palace party mowed down as they descended to surrender." {Letters VII: 271) When Stark wrote to people, she commonly asked them to keep them for her later use. She commented that she was reading all of her own letters from 1939-1947, prior to writing the fourth volume of her autobiography: Dust in the Lion's Paw (1961). (Letters VII: 275)

H 3 . Riding to the Tigris. ( 1 9 5 9 )

172

laid half London out, made me spend in bed the weekend during which I was to meet the Queen at luncheon in the country. Hard! - It leaves one very feeble, & I am glad you are far away & I hope beyond its range - Apart from those 5 days in bed I lunched & dined with friends every single day of my 2 1/2 months, & am glad to rest now with Asolo looking like a domestic little comer of heaven -1 came back by way of Holland & enjoyed strolling about diose charming streets of Amsterdam. It seems to me a very easy pleasant way home just as quick as the other.

Let me hear how you are & when you return to us. I am here till April 8th & then fly to Persia & return by mid May - till end of June when the house is let, for 3

months to the Mooreheads. Alan ' ^ is coming alone any day now to stay here to write his book, so that there will be great literary activity & the Encyclopaedia Brit, has already arrived in two enormous packs!

All here send love & ask you to collect some recherche recipes! Love from Freya.

Casa Freia Asolo (Treviso) Italy. 15.5.59^"^^

Dearest Harry

I have just got back from Persia - dining w Inez & Bernard on the way - & find your letter here so glad of your news but sad that you are not passing through this garden on your route: it is so much better just now than anything that I have been seeing anywhere, except of course in the way of'ruins'. I stayed w. R. Lavender, ^ who came with me to Persepolis & the tomb of Cyrus: then I went down to the Gulf, saw Abadan for the first time, & felt it rather like Paradise Lost Book II; was fascinated by the little island of Kharg where megalithic & Palmyrene tombs are being surrounded by the new oil harbour; got up through Isfahan to Tabriz & the Parthian Phraaspa high in the mountains - I stayed with the Russells " ® whom you probably know & was delighted to be in Persia again after

God willing. (Deo volente) Alan Moorehead wrote The White Nile (1960) at Asolo, and dedicated it to Stark. His wife Lucy, and after her accidental death in Italy, his daughter Caroline, edited Stark's letters, and Caroline later wrote a biography of Stark. Events indicate that the year was 1959, although the 9 is very like a 7.

147 Lavender Wilson, a friend. "R" is unidentified. John and Aliki Russell of the Embassy. Stark had lunched with Aliki on the Greek Island of Spetsai in September, 1958. (Letters VII: 266)

173

so long: the language came back enough for going around with, though the salad now made with my Turkish is phenomenal.

Do please remember me to H.E. & greet Lady Laycock although I have not met her - And do come soon dear Harry. I am here till July, then at Mortola, & then I hope to go in a little party for 3 weeks perhaps to Mytylene: after diat I am still radier vague but expect to be here from November on - Why not come out for Xmas? 1 have Alan Moorhead & an engaging parrot who rules our lives.

Is Stewart's H a d r i a n o u t or when does it appear? Much love to you from Freya.

Asolo 10.6.59

Dearest Harry

Are you home again? and how are you? when are you in Asolo? I leave it, but look to be here for the winter this year. Perhaps you will come for Christmas?!

I go to L'Arma - La Mortola - Ventimiglia for July, then in mid August to Mitylene, &

after that to Beirut.

I have written to Hilda^^^ but have no idea where to find her, & wonder if you would

mind sending this on? 1 am reading all my old letters & tidying them, a mixed sort of

thing half pleasure & half pain. Love always from

Freya.

As from David P a w s o n ^ ^ l 4 Qdos Korai Athens, 30.7.60.

Dearest Harry

Hadrian was published in 1960. Hilda Ridler, a friend of both Perowne and Stark and with whom she stayed in Cyprus in late 1952. She is also mentioned in Perowne's letters. David and Pamela Pawson are first mentioned in August, 1954. They lived in Athens. {Letters VII: 117) Stark often stayed widi them and she and Mrs Pawson travelled together several times.

174

How are you? Are you happily through your operation & convalescing? I am in Stambul, but leaving for Greece in 10 days so give you that address in the hope of hearing your news.

1 have been chasing permits in Ankara for my hoped for journey along Euphrates in September - but it is, as you can imagine, a difficult year - though all the surface very quiet -1 hope they may put their revolution through successfully - they do need a time for quiet building'

How lovely this city is! I don't believe they can spoil it, & the Bosphorus front is, I think, greatly improved: they have pulled down a lot of ramshackle warehouses & now the mosques & kiosks appear isolated, like flowers all along the water's edge.

Much love dear Harry send news.

Yours affly Freya.

Casa Freia Asolo Treviso. 5.9.64.

Dearest Harry

Your little note comes just as we were all recovering from the Maser^^^ ball which was a very beautiful affair but has filled my house with 11 guests - 7 young people all beautiful & gay. My house alas! not yet sold,^^^ but the agents are now beginning to send people 1 still hope for this autumn: if not will have to sit in it till the spring. The Montoria^^"^ however is getting to look almost habitable, with floors going down & painters in (Si the Swimming pool is a great success. The Reynolds S t o n e s ^ ^ ^ spent a fortnight camping there & have left me a beautiful sketch of it -

Neighbours in Italy. T h e ball was g iven by Contessa Marina Luling Buschett i in her Palladian villa, famous for its Veronese frescoes. {Letters VIII: 79) Stark wanted to sell her house in A s o l o in order to move to one she had had built o n a hil l outside the town. Casa Freia was not sold until January, 1966. (Letters VIII: 92)

154 A vast two-storey h o u s e designed by Stark and originally intended to be a small house for her retirement. It was to prove an unattractive white e lephant, isolated, too expens ive to run and equally difficult to staff or to sell. Large loans to shore up her improvidence were frequent. (Letters VIII: 85) Dulc ie Deuchar, another friend and John Murray also helped out financially (Letters VIII: 86) and she had paying guests. "My little fortune of L 16,000. . .went d o w n the Montoria drain". (Letters VIII: 89)

155 Reynolds S t o n e was a wood engraver and artist. He and his wife Janet camped on the mounta in

side.

175

I don't expect to move till all this is settled - 1965 some time. Poor Hilda - how sorry I am

- what a mess the whole thing has been - & we seem as usual to have got ourselves

disliked by both sides - When does one see you here again? Are you cruising too?

Lots of love dear Harry from Freya.

Casa Freia Asolo (Treviso) Italy. 7.12.64.

Dearest Harry

I was so glad to have news of you & hope this may now reach you in time to wish you

everything nice for Xmas & after - 1 wonder if it will have to travel to NepaU^^ to get at

you! 1 am so pleased when 1 hear of your doing these things; it makes me hopeful for my

80th year & 1 do want to see both Nepal, Kashmir Samarkand before 1 diel^^^

Meanwhile the sale of my house hangs fire & 1 have greatly reduced its price (to

in case you have any likely friends) as the Crisis here has sent all property

down. 1 spend my leisure over squalid financial calculations, but go steadily on with the

Montoria it is most lovely in this clear weather surrounded by Snowy mountain ridges

& beautifully warm inside - though still not finished. The great relief is that I have

tenants for the lower flat^^^, which solves one part of my problem - 1 am just reading the

WavelU^*^ book & remembering those years: how steadfast great he was - & thinking of

what we were up against & how one just went on from day to day & came out through it

all it seems a waste of time now to worry about anything at all!

My Roman book^^^ has just come to the end of its last chapter & 1 hope to goodness Jock

doesn't want any changes! 1 have quoted you on the Syriac not Jacobite church. Give

Stewart my love if anywhere near - (I have just sent him a card but deeply mistrust Italian

posts this year) Love from Freya.

Sir Harry visited Nepal and Sikkim in 1965.

She went twice to Nepal. T h e original asking price was L66 ,000 , but she was prepared to accept a rock bottom of L50, 000 . {Letters VIII: 62, July 1963 . ) Her book does not reveal what she finally accepted. (Letters VIII: 89, September, 1965 ) David Karmel, and his wife took it for L 1000 a year for eight years, or so Stark believed. (Letters VIII: 81, October, 1 9 6 4 ) She was initially delighted by their generosity, even sharing their meals, but it ended disastrously: "The Karmels have been winkled out into the open to say fair and square that they do not intend to pay any arrears ever". (Letters VIII: 159, February, 1969) . She had expected them to pay up until April, 1969. There was no mention of them staying after January, 1967.

160. Lord Wavell died in 1950.

161. Rome on the Euphrates. ( 1 9 6 6 )

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Conclusion

Although the letters in the A.D.F.A. collection cease in 1964, there must have been others. She wrote in 1967: "1 have had a house full: old Cairo friends. Han^ Luke still with me..." {Letters VIII: 125); and in 1969 in a postscript to her publisher:

I hear vaguely that dear old Harry Luke has died. He was eighty-four or even eighty-five, and I found a letter here saying diat he hoped to get out of die doctors' hands and come out; I shall miss him. (Letters VIII: 164)

Her words to John Murray seem an unexpectedly mild reaction to his death. He did, it seems, rate only a postscript after all. The correspondence seemed full of close friendship but appearances can be deceptive. This raises the question of Sir Harry's role in Stark's life: he was the man with whom she had cherished hopes of sharing her household in the early stages of these letters. Her dismissal of his writing talents when she received Sir Harry's book for review^^^ in 1956 also reveals no great opinion of him:

1 have written a very hasty review of it and hope it may please him, and that it may not show that I really don't think it very good: he does prose along in a rather Poona way, but is such a dear that 1 would like to make the best of it 1 can. (Letters VII: 171)

Her friendship had a certain bite to it and may explain why she failed to find permanent lodgers, or remain married for long, despite her apparently outward-going personality.

TTie letters end on a comment about Stewart Perowne, signifying that Stark never got over her catastrophic marriage, or the impression that she was the wounded party, since Perowne obstinately rejected her overtures of renewed friendship. TTie first letter suggests another possible line of thought by revealing obliquely that her marriage was apparently unconsummated^ .

We may speculate upon the reasons for her friends' studied silence on the subject of her marriage. They may have been well-acquainted with Perowne's "bachelor ways", and Stark may have been unaware of them. Equally, they may have regarded it as inexplicably bad taste for Stark to consider marriage to a homosexual. Stark had lived for ten years in close proximity to Perowne in a restricted community. It is improbable that his tastes were completely unknown to her.

It is in character for Stark not to have minded Perowne's sexual orientation, because overt expressions of sexuality had in the past always sent her into paroxysms of fright and

162. Volume 111 of his autobiography, Cities and Men. (1956)

This was subsequently confirmed by Izzard's biography. (Izzard: 39-40)

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distaste. Such a stance may seem understandable: Stark had always hoped to appear virtuous even if her career as a lone adventurer made the latter difficult to achieve. Her autobiography contains tales of masculine sexual advances which she had spurned: and equally it also contains tales of men she would very much have liked to marry. An amply documented life leaves an ambiguous attitude towards virtue, but Stark never implies that she was often tempted to take advantage of the impetuosity of the minute. It is also possible that early childhood experiences had made her wary for life of the prospect of sexual intimacy: reactions to incidents in early childhood support this conclusion. (Traveller's Prelude: 57-59) Her friendship with Venetia Buddicom (1923-1936) is not regarded as evidence of lesbian interests, rather the reverse since they quarrelled over a man. Her close relationship with her mother up until her death in 1942 may well have made it difficult for her to consider marriage objectively during her formative years. For one of an apparently cool sexual temperament, Stark was no longer of an age for intimate sexual relationships to be greatly welcomed by the time she actually married. She was also capable of any amount of self-deception if it suited her purpose, as it may have done here.

Her attitude towards writing also remained ambiguous to the last. Writing made her famous and kept her in the public eye, and yet she grudged the time it took, which kept her away from the upper class "leisure" which she coveted and believed to be rightfully hers. It would seem that she lived removed from English life because only outside England could she live an upper class life, or at least command a large home and three servants in the absence of a significant income: it also placed her outside the exclusive English social class system, which had its advantages and its disadvantages for one such as Stark. So much about her was exceptional. Even her home, Casa Freia, from which she entertained so many prominent friends in Asolo, had not been bought with family money. It had been the gift of a friend of her father, an Australian artist, Herbert Young. Her social position was defined by association with the comfortable upper middle classes and the minor aristocracy. They were charmed by her adventuring, so unusual for a woman, and by her writing. Asolo's location near Venice ensured her a stream of young women of good social class who would type her letters in return for an Italian experience. It was a stopping place for peripatetic friends who were travelling onwards to the British Embassy in Greece, or Turkey or China. In return, many friends seem to have contributed considerable sums of money to pay her expenses and her debts.

Montoria proved a costly mistake. It was large and isolated, scarcely good points in view of her advancing years and declining income. She wanted to live a separate life and yet also to have a ready-made family to care for her. Not one of her friends would buy it, run it,

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and allow her to live in it for the cost of her board. The tale of the Karmels is instructive.

She could be devious, and it is possible that they had an different tale to tell. Their

silence is as eloquent as that of Perowne.

Only her writing was distinctively hers, although, as we have seen, it is an ambiguous

achievement . Others, especially her publisher, John Murray, but not as one might

possibly have expected, the editors of her Letters, Lucy and Carol ine Moorehead,

contributed to the finished product.

T h e A.D.F.A. letters contain an exuberant vitality. They serve as a microcosm for the

volumes of her letters which are already published. Her energy for people and travel

remains undiminished by age and time. The Letters reveal how Stark had become a

woman who was celebrated as a traveller and also as an Arabist. It was fuelled by her hard

work as a self-publicist, and aided by the generous support of her friends. Without her

letter writing, she could have been forgotten by her pre-war and wartime friends. They

had each other and shared lives in England to retain close ties. She was isolated in Italy

and had only the letter and the invitation - the latter both extended and received, and

she utilised them fully in her loneliness.

Freya Stark thought that her letters would remain of interest after her books ceased to be

read. TTiis does not seem to be the case, as her books are still in print and widely read.

However, this is not to detract from the A.D.F.A. letters which are interesting and

amusing - perhaps even more so than she intended them to be in her transparent and

unsuccessful 'wooing' of Sir Harry, and in the story of her financial improvidence over

Montoria, as well as in her unsuccessful plotting and scheming to find someone else to be

responsible for running of her household.

T h e letters are revealing psychologically. They were vital communications by a woman

who remained ever hungry for closer ties than she was ever to experience, within her

chosen social milieu. Tlie upper class people who appear in these letters offered her a

great deal which she valued, but it is evident that Stark never received what she yearned

for - whether it was from Sir Harry Luke, or anyone else, including her estranged husband,

Stewart Perowne. She wanted close companionship, with or without marriage, on her

own exacting terms. She never received it, although she clearly possessed charm in

quantity. Her friends' willingness to fulfil her numerous needs: for lodgers, books, trees,

garden bulbs and money are indicative of this.

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It is interesting to read her letters to Sir Harry Luke without the heavy editing which was necessary to reduce her other correspondence to a manageable length for publishing purposes. The A.D.F.A. collection are not Belles Lettres. They were written towards the end of a successful writing career and a life which was successful in worldly terms, by an amazingly active woman, who devoted less time to travel writing than to travelling, or "adventuring", as she would have prefered to put it.

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t e s i 5 1 99 3 C a m p b & 1 I

F r e y a S t a r k s c r e a t i v e i n v a l i d

, t r a V e } w r i t e r a n d a u t c b i o . » .

C a m p b e l l , C h r i s t i n e Ann

BARCODE 3 0 i 5 7 Z ERN 2 5 9 6 8 3

ADFA L i b r a r y 14 OCT 1994