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The Coast of Incense: Autobiography 1933-39

by Freya Stark

4.0 of 5 stars 4.00 · rating details · 1 rating · 0 reviews

THE COAST OF INCENSE is the third book in Freya Stark's autobiography. It covers the middle years (1933-1939). The author emerges as an intelligent and gifted woman, a sensitive observer and a courageous traveler.

Her vivid, intimate descriptions of Egypt, the Persian Gulf, Greece, Italy and the Middle East allows us to travel vicariously with every turn of the page. A sun

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Lists with This Book

My Journey to Lhasa by Alexandra David-Néel

The Valleys of the Assassins by Freya Stark

Straight on Till Morning by Mary S. Lovell

Trailblazing Women Adventurers

123rd out of 211 books — 90 voters

Best Memoirs/Autobiography/Travel

422nd out of 490 books — 618 voters

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About Freya Stark

Freya Stark was born in Paris, where her parents were studying art. Her mother, Flora, was an Italian of Polish/German descent; her father, Robert, an English painter from Devon.

In her lifetime she was famous for her experiences in the Middle East, her writing and her cartography. Freya Stark was not only one of the first Western women to travel through the Arabian deserts (Hadhramaut), she often Freya Stark was born in Paris, where her parents were studying art. Her mother, Flora, was an Italian of Polish/German descent; her father, Robert, an English painter from Devon.

In her lifetime she was famous for her experiences in the Middle East, her writing and her cartography. Freya Stark was not only one of the first Western women to travel through the Arabian deserts (Hadhramaut), she often travelled solo into areas where few Europeans, let alone women, had ever been.

She spent much of her childhood in North Italy, helped by the fact that Pen Browning, a friend of her father, had bought three houses in Asolo. She also had a grandmother in Genoa. For her 9th birthday she received a copy of the One Thousand and One Nights , and became fascinated with the Orient. She was often ill while young, and confined to the house, so found an outlet in reading. She delighted in reading French, in particular Dumas, and taught herself Latin. When she was 13 she had an accident in a factory in Italy, when her hair got caught in a machine, and she had to spend four months getting skin grafts in hospital, which left her face slightly disfigured.

She later learned Arabic and Persian, studied history in London and during World War I worked as a nurse in Italy, where her mother had remained and taken a share in a business. Her sister, Vera, married the co-owner.

In November 1927 she visited Asolo for the first time in years, and later that month boarded a ship for Beirut, where her travels in the East began. She based herself first at the home of James Elroy Flecker in Lebanon and then in Baghdad, where she met the British high commissioner.

By 1931 she had completed three dangerous treks into the wilderness of western Iran, in parts of which no Westerner had ever been before, and had located the long-fabled Valleys of the Assassins (hashish-eaters). During the 1930s she penetrated the hinterland of southern Arabia, where only a handful of Western explorers had previously ventured and then never as far or as widely as she went.

During World War II, she joined the British Ministry of Information and contributed to the creation of a propaganda network aimed at persuading Arabs to support the Allies or at least remain neutral. She wrote more than two dozen books based on her travels, almost all of which were published by John Murray in London, with whom she had a successful and long-standing working relationship. ...more

More about Freya Stark...

Books by Freya Stark

The Valleys of the Assassins: and Other Persian Travels

The Southern Gates of Arabia: A Journey in the Hadhramaut

The Journey's Echo: Selections from Freya Stark (Travels)

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