Author Description

Explorer, scholar, travel writer and poet, Charles Doughty was the progenitor of a noble tradition that includes Lawrence of Arabia (to whom he was a mentor) and Wilfred British writers who have been fascinated by the Bedouin, and in particular by that strange, mythic part of the world, the Empty Quarter (a phrase which Doughty introduced to the West). In the 1870s Doughty spent two years wandering through Arabia, first with the Haj pilgrimage, then joining nomadic bands of Arabs, sometimes staying as a virtual prisoner in far-flung desert towns. Unyielding in his independence of mind, the tall, red-bearded Doughty's aggressive refusal to conceal his Christianity made his travels all the more he was threatened with death several times, spurned, insulted and often beaten by angry mobs. The story of his archaeological investigations and his wide-ranging observations of Arabia and desert life were published in 1888 as the famous Arabia Deserta, with its haunting openi