Hornby, Emily. Sinai and Petra. The Journals of Emily Hornby, in 1899 and 1901.

London & Liverpool, James Nisbet & J. A. Thompson, [1907].

8vo. 244 pp. With a colour frontispiece and 9 colour plates, all drawn after Hornby's original watercolour sketches. Contemporary giltstamped full cloth, spine and front edge repaired with green cloth in the 1990s, with 2 giltstamped spine labels taken over form the original spine.

 500.00

First edition.

Intriguing account by a woman traveller visiting the Sinai Peninsula in 1899 and Petra in 1901, her stops including Gaza, Jaffa, Jericho, Jerusalem, Port Said, and Suez. Hornby, who was not only a pioneer among woman travellers but also an ambitious mountaineer, created lovely watercolour sketches of her impressions during the journey, some of which are printed here. They show her tent in Ayn Musa, palm trees in Wady Ghurundel, Mount Serbal, Ras Sufsafeh, St. Catherine's monastery in Sinai, the Urn Tombs of Petra, the Siq passage leading up to the Al-Kazneh, Ad Deir, and Mount Hor from Bidebda.

Browned throughout with some foxing, more pronounced among first and last leaves. Bookplate of Peter Ward (d. 2004) of Purlieu in Upper Colwall, former intelligence officer in the Middle East and North Africa and fluent speaker of Arabic, to front pastedown; flyleaf shows remains of an earlier, removed bookplate and a pencil note regarding repairs to the book done in 1995.

No copy in auction records. A rare example of Arabian travel literature from the early 20th century featuring a female protagonist.

References

OCLC 560058182.