The Middle East for young readers

Tweedy, Maureen. The Young Traveller in the Middle East.

€ 950,00

First edition. Uncommon description of the Middle East couched as a fictional narrative so as better to reach a juvenile audience. The author served in the British diplomatic corps in the Gulf, Syria, and Iran and embellished the present work with many of her own photographs.

Through the exciting experiences of her protagonists, Tweedy introduces the daily life of the rapidly developing Middle East to her target audience - young people for whom, as her publisher notes, conventional geography books had become stale. In the story, the culture of Bahrain and Oman is covered in some detail, including observations on the hardships of pearl divers: "Theirs is a terribly hard life and they never live to old age, yet they are a most cheerful and carefree lot [...] It is estimated that about one shell in a thousand contains a worthwhile pearl. The diver goes up and down six or eight hours a day, so you can imagine how hard he works".

Tweedy had already published on Bahrain and the Gulf in the early 1950s, and she released her memoirs in 1976. A lively work, with WorldCat showing around a dozen institutional copies.