THESIGER, Sir Wilfred Patrick. The Marsh Arabs. London, Butler & Tanner Ltd for Longmans, Green and Co Ltd, 1964.
8vo. Original green cloth, spine lettered in black and gilt, dustwrapper (price-clipped); pp. [xiv], 242; monochrome photographic frontispiece and 32 plates bearing 109 photographic illustrations recto-and-verso after Thesiger, one double-page and two full-page maps after K.C. Jordan in the text; minimal rubbing to head and tail of spine of the wrappers, very light offsetting to endpapers, nonetheless a very good, fresh copy; ownership inscription to front fly-leaf, dated 1964.
First edition. The Marsh Arabs was Thesiger's second book, and is based on his experiences between 1950 and 1958, when he lived amongst the Marsh Arabs of Iraq for eight years, 'sharing the communal life of the villages and travelling by canoe throughout the marshes' (Alexander Maitland, ODNB); its publication in 1964 -- extensively illustrated with Thesiger's own photographs -- 'confirmed Thesiger's reputation as a writer and a photographer' (loc. cit.).
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