It was rare to leave her company without feeling the world was somehow larger and more promising. Her life was something of a work of art...The books in which she recorded her journeys were seductively individual...Nomad and social lioness, public servant and private essayist, emotional victim and mythmaker. -- Colin Thubron * The New York Times * Few writers have the capacity to do with words what Faberge could do with gems - to fashion them, without violating their quality. It is this extraordinary talent which sets Freya Stark apart from her fellow craftsman in the construction of books on travel. * The Daily Telegraph * Freya Stark remains unexcelled as an interpreter of brief encounters in wild regions against the backdrop of history. * The Observer * One of the finest travel writers of our century. * The New Yorker * A Middle East traveler, an explorer and, above all, a writer, Freya Stark has, with an incomparably clear eye, looked toward the horizon of the past without ever losing sight of the present. Her books are route plans of a perceptive intelligence, traversing time and space with ease. * Saudi Aramco World *