Freya Stark - Jane Fletcher Geniesse

Fluent in at least seven languages, including Arabic, Turkish and Persian, and a writer of ravishing prose accounts of her journeys, Freya Stark was one of the great travel writers of the century. In 1934 her first book, "Valley of the Assasins", was hailed as a classic and T.E. Lawrence pronounced her "a gallant creature, a remarkable person". It marked the beginning of a dazzling career as writer, explorer, and unofficial diplomat which led her to explore ancient trading routes of the Yemen desert, Crusaders' castles in Syria, and Alexander the Great's path through Turkey. She frequently travelled, alone and female, through dangerous and uncomfortable territories and was, on one occasion rescued by the Royal Air Force.;During World War II, she worked hard to win Islamic people to the Allied cause and toured the United States for the British Ministry of Information. By this time her fame was considerable and her conversation attracted a hugely diverse social circle to her hilltop Italian home. She continued to travel and write widley well into her old age - climbing in the lower slopes of Mount Everest in her late 80s - and lived to reach 100, leaving a legacy of over 30 volumes of travel writings, autobiography and letters.