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Rare Books
Bedouin tribes of the Euphrates
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- Description
- Lady Anne Blunt (1837-1917), daughter of the Earl of Lovelace and granddaughter of Lord Byron, is known as an adventurous traveler to the Middle East and the most accomplished horsewoman and breeder of Arabian stock of her era. She was married to poet and diplomat Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (1840-1922). When he inherited a family estate in Sussex in 1872, the couple was able to establish a stud at their Crabbet Park home. They then traveled in the Middle East to purchase Arabian horses from Bedouin tribesmen, which they transported back to England. In 1878 Lady Anne journeyed from Beirut, across northern Syria, and south through Mesopotamia to Baghdad. From there she traveled north along the Tigris River and west across the desert to the Mediterranean port of Alexandretta (present-day Iskenderun, Turkey). In 1879 she again set out from Beirut, but traveled south through the Emirate of Jabal Shammar, reached its capital of Ha'il, across the Arabian Peninsula, and continued to the port of Bushehr (present-day Iran). Shown here is the first edition of Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates. It is one of two books that Lady Anne wrote based on her travel diaries during these journeys (the other is A Pilgrimage to Nejd). Edited by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, the book concludes with a few chapters that he wrote on "the Arabs and their horses." In 1882 the couple opened a second stud outside Cairo, which they called Shaykh 'Ubayd. The couple separated in 1906, and in 1913 Lady Anne left England and moved permanently to Shaykh 'Ubayd. She died in Cairo in 1917. She is credited with helping preserve the purebred Arabian horse and was known by her friends as the "noble lady of the horses."
