The Wilder Shores of Love by Lesley Blanch (Presentation Copy)
BLANCH, Lesley. The Wilder Shores of Love. London: John Murray, 1966.
Fourth printing (first published 1954). Author’s first book. Presentation copy affectionately and playfully inscribed by Leslie Blanch for her London friends “Mark + Marguerite [Littman], on the Wildest Shores of Delight & Comfort at 79 Chester Square, from their happy, idle, appreciative, loving guest Lesley. November ‘74”. Marguerite Littman (1930-2020) was an American-British socialite who sat for Andy Warhol’s minimal Polaroids, and it is said to have been one the inspirations for Truman Capote’s Holly Golightly. She was a philanthropist, who together with her close friend Diana, Princess of Wales became an early force in the fight against AIDS.
The Wilder Shores of Love was a sensational success, an original and influential book that brought Blanch instant cult status on both sides of the Atlantic. The book appealed due to the choice of subject matter – a historical account of four 19th century European women travellers to the Orient, and for its free, imaginative, and sensuous style. The book tells the stories of Lady Isabel Burton, the wife of Arabist and explorer Richard Burton; Jane Digby, who was known successively as Lady Ellenborough, Baroness von Venningen Üllner, Countess Theotoky, and he Honourable Mrs Digby el Mesreb; Aimée Dubucq de Rivery, a French convent girl captured at sea by pirates and sent to the Sultan's harem; and Isabelle Eberhardt, a Swiss linguist who settled in Algeria among the tribes in the Sahara, converted to Islam, and dressed as a man.
Lesley Blanch (1904-2007) was an English writer, artist, journalist, historian and traveller. She studied art at Slade School and worked as an artist-illustrator before becoming features editor of British Vogue from 1937 to 1944. She was married to French writer-diplomat Romain Gary from 1945 to 1962. During their marriage, Gary served as consul general for France to Los Angeles, and became part of the Hollywood circuit. Over the course of her life, she wrote 12 books, and a posthumous collection of her memoirs was released in 2015.
Very good in price-clipped dust jacket.