The first British Muslim woman to make the Hajj

Cobbold, Lady Evelyn. Pilgrimage to Mecca.

London, John Murray, 1934.

8vo (150 x 203 mm). XIX, (1), 260 pp. With 19 half-tone illustrations and a full-page map in the text. Original green cloth, gilt lettering to spine, gilt stamp reading "Zainab" in Arabic to front cover.

 3,500.00

First edition, with the introduction which was not included in the majority of copies.

The account of a pilgrimage to Mecca performed by Lady Evelyn Cobbold in 1933, at the age of 65 years. Having spent her childhood holidays in North Africa, Lady Evelyn became fascinated with Islam, converting in 1915. Her book is considered "a valuable record of the hajj [...] We do not forget that the author is a Lady - she stays with the distinguished St John Philbys in Jeddah and travels to Mecca in a large limousine with chilled chicken and soda-water in a hamper at the back - but the picture she gives of the experience is unelaborate and revealing, and detailed enough to serve as a guidebook as well as a travel account" (Robinson, Wayward Women [Oxford, 1990], p. 41).

Lady Evelyn (then, Zainab Cobbold) died in 1963 and was buried on a hillside on her estate in Wester Ross. "Her splendidly Islamo-Caledonian interment symbolised her two worlds: a piper played MacCrimmon's Lament, while the Surah 'Light' from the Qur'an was recited in Arabic" (Facey, "From Mayfair to Mecca", in The Guardian, 19 May 2008).

A few small stains and scuffs to covers, extremities very slightly rubbed. Endpapers foxed (as usual), otherwise very good. Neat ink ownership inscription by Ethel A. Dodd of Cairo, dated 21 Feb. 1935 to front free endpaper. Later in the collection of the Canadian psychoanalyst William Clifford Munro Scott (1903-97) with his stamp and date "8/53" in ink.

References

Macro 726. OCLC 3303382.