Gourt Home::Gourt :: Wilfred Thesiger
Sir Wilfred Patrick Thesiger KBE, DSO (3 June, 1910 – August 24, 2003) was a British explorer and travel writer born in Addis Ababa in Abyssinia (now Ethiopia). His father was a British diplomat. He was educated at Eton College and Oxford but soon returned to Africa. He joined the Sudan Political Service in 1934, fought in the newly-formed Long Range Desert Group in North Africa during World War II, and later worked in Arabia with the Desert Locusts Research Organisation. His travels also took him to Iraq, Persia (now Iran), Kurdistan, Abyssinia (now Ethiopia), The Sudan, French West Africa, Pakistan and Kenya. He returned to England in the 1990s and was knighted in 1995.
Thesiger is best known for two travel books. Arabian Sands (1959) recounts his travels in the Empty Quarter of Arabia between 1945 and 1950 and describes the vanishing way of life of the Bedouins. The Marsh Arabs (1964) is an account of the traditional peoples who lived in the marshlands of southern Iraq. The latter journey is also covered by his travelling companion, Gavin Maxwell, in A Reed Shaken By The Wind - a Journey Through the Unexplored Marshlands of Iraq (Longman, 1959).
Thesiger took many photographs during his travels and donated his vast collection of 25,000 negatives to the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford.
Thesiger was not greatly enamoured of American culture, about which he had this to say:
The long-term effect of US culture as it spreads to every nook and cranny in every desert and every mountain valley will be the end of mankind. Our extraordinary greed for material possessions, the ways we go about nurturing that greed, the lack of balance in our lives, and our cultural arrogance will kill us off within a century unless we learn to stop and think. It may be too late.
His books were analysed, from a collector's point of view, in Book and Magazine Collector magazine, No.65, August 1989.
Quote
Thesiger * in a Homeric age of exploration and travel writing, an age before sponsorship and television tie-ins. He stands as a monolith against trash consumerist and trash celebrity culture. — travel writer Sarah Wheeler, author of Travels in a Thin Country
External links
Photographs by Thesiger
Alexander Maitland, Wilfred Thesiger: The Life of the Great Explorer (Harperpress, February 20, 2006) 544 pp.
- Review of official biography discusses various aspects of the explorer's life and characters.
Obituaries and Profiles (mostly August 2003)
- The Guardian obituary (27 August 2003) with links to an earlier profile (29 June 2002) and to extracts from his books and reviews.
- BBC obituary (26 August 2003) contains errors such as Wilfred being the youngest son, which he was not.
- Profile by Robin Hanbury-Tenison founder of Survival International (an NGO promoting the welfare of tribal/ indigenous people worldwide)
Bibliography
(Possibly incomplete)
Books by Wilfred Thesiger (1910-2003)
- Arabian Sands (1959) travel writing classic, reissued in several editions
- Currently available edition:
- Paperback reissue April 1985 by Penguin; ISBN 0140095144
- Out of print editions
- (unknown binding) 1960 Readers Union (January 1, 1960) 270 pp; ASIN B0007J3E16
- Paperback reissue 1981 Viking Press (February 1981); ISBN 0140021256
- Hardcover reissue 1983 by Fairmount Books Ltd Remainders (September 30, 1983); ISBN 0002170051
- Hardcover reissue 1983 by Viking Adult (April 19, 1984). 347 pp. ISBN 0670130052
- Paperback reissue 1984 by Penguin; ISBN 0140095144
- Hardcover reissue 1998 by Motivate Publishing Ltd; ISBN 1873544758
- Currently available edition:
- The Marsh Arabs (1964) -- out of print in all editions.
- Out of print editions
- Paperback reissue 1983 (out of print) -- Gardners Books (April 30, 1983); ISBN 0140095128
- Hardover reissue 1985 (out of print) -- Harpercollins Pub Ltd (May 31, 1985); ISBN 000217068X
- Out of print editions
- The Life of My Choice (1987)-- out of print in all editions; described as a remarkable biography
- Out of print editions
- British edition Collins (1987); ISBN 000216194X;
- American hardcover edition W.W. Norton (January 1988) 459 pp; ISBN 0393025136;
- American paperback edition Harpercollins Pub Ltd (March 31, 1993). ISBN 0006372678
- Out of print editions
- My Kenya Days Harper Collins, London, 1994; ISBN 000255268X
- Among the Mountains: Travels Through Asia Harper Collins, (1998); ISBN 000255898X. This account presents edited portions of journal entries written during trips to remote mountain areas of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Kurdistan between 1952 and 1965, as well as numerous black-and-white photographs that he took at the time. There is little details (nor current travel information) since the book is based on his diary entries. For a better account, read The Life of My Choice.
- Crossing the Sands Motivate Pub Ltd (January 2000) 176 pp; ISBN 1860630286. About his journeys in the Empty Quarter and the Arabian Peninula during the late forties, with photographs, but apparently more than a coffee table book.
- My Life and Travels (anthology)
- Available editions
- Hardcover edition Harper Collins (October 21 2002) 352 pp. ISBN 000257151X
- Hardcover reissue by Flamingo (October 6, 2003) 320 pp; ISBN 0006552129
- Available editions
- A Vanished World -- in print
- Available editions
- First American hardcover edition 2001 W.W. Norton (September 17, 2001) 192 pp; ISBN 0007108370
- American hardcover edition 2002 W.W. Norton (April 2002) 189 pp, possibly the same as above, collection of photographs; ISBN 0393050866
- Available editions
Books About Wilfred Thesiger
- Alexander Maitland. Thesiger: A Life in Pictures; ISBN 1860631657
Thesiger's out of print books can be obtained through several sources and may be available through public and academic libraries.
1910 births | 2003 deaths | British explorers | British travel writers | Explorers of Asia
Wilfred Thesiger | Wilfred Thesiger | Wilfred Thesiger | Wilfred Thesiger | Wilfred Thesiger
"Wilfred Thesiger"