Arabia Felix

The Annotated Account of the First Crossing of the Rub Al Khali Desert by a non-Arab.

Bertram Thomas spent his working life from 1916, to his death in 1950 in the Arab World. In this book he describes his crossing of the vast Rub Al Khali Sand Desert from Salalah, in Dhofar Oman, though the desert to Doha, Qatar. He planned this epic adventure while working as a government minister to the Sultan of Muscat and Oman, having worked for many years in Iraq and then Jordan.

New to this edition are place-specific modern Colour photographs for context, in addition to scanned black & white images by Bertram Thomas. An introductory biography to Thomas gives background to his achievement.

This annotated edition has been completely retyped from the original Readers Union book, its images were scanned to improve print quality. Punctuation and spellings, though occasionally at odds with current usage and often inconsistent within the book have generally been kept as in the Bertram Thomas text.

Full of unexpected events and fascinating insights into the Arabian culture, this is a must-read to understand parts of Arabia as they are today.

This is a fascinating account of a groundbreaking expedition and ideal for anyone interested in Arabia and its people.