Thesiger, Wilfred

WILFRED THESIGER (1910-2003) was a British military officer, writer and colonial explorer in the tradition of Sir Richard Burton and T.E. Lawrence, renowned for his travels through some of the most inaccessible places on earth.  He spent his early life hunting and riding in the countryside around Addis Ababa, and later attributed his lifelong preference for travel and the outdoors to these early experiences.  In addition to Arabia and Iraq, Thesiger also travelled extensively in Iran, Kurdistan, French West Africa, Pakistan, Afghanistan and northern Kenya.



He is best known for two classic travel books: ARABIAN SANDS (1959), which recounts his expeditions in the Rub' al-Khali (Empty Quarter) in the Arabian Peninsula between 1945 and 1950 and describes the vanishing way of life of his Bedu nomad guides; and THE MARSH ARABS (1964), a magnificent account of his years among the Madan, the indigenous people of the marshlands of southern Iraq.  His works display a deep admiration for the traditional cultures of the peoples that he lived among, as well as romantic distaste for modern Western civilization and inventions such as motor vehicles and telecommunications, which he saw as threats to those peoples' unique ways of life.



In his autobiography, THE LIFE OF MY CHOICE (1987), Thesiger recalls his life and illuminates the people and places that most profoundly influenced him and the events which enabled him to lead the life of his choice.  WILFRED THESIGER IN AFRICA (2010) is a unique collection of essays accompanying Thesiger’s own personal photographs of the Africa he experienced.  Alexander Maitland's fine biography of the explorer (2007) was written with full access, granted to no one else, to the rich Thesiger archive – vivid, intimate family correspondence, and his own letters, diaries and notebooks which are far more confiding than his scrupulously edited published accounts.  I have also included here a selection of Lawrence's articles published in scholarly journals.





The following books are in ePUB and/or PDF format:



* Arabian Sands (Penguin Classics, 2007) -- ePUB + PDF

* Life of My Choice, The (Collins, 1987) -- PDF

* Marsh Arabs, The (Penguin Classics, 2008) -- ePUB + PDF

* Wilfred Thesiger in Africa (HarperCollins, 2010).  Christopher Morton, ed. -- ePUB



Also included:



* Maitland, Alexander - Wilfred Thesiger: Life of the Great Explorer (HarperCollins, 2007) -- ePUB

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