Fluent in at least seven languages and a writer of ravishing prose accounts of her journeys, Freya Stark was one of the great travel writers of the twentieth century. In 1934 her first book, Valley of the Assassins, was hailed as a classic and T. E. Lawrence pronounced Stark 'a gallant creature, a remarkable person'. It marked the start of a dazzling career as a writer; explorer and official diplomat which led Stark to explore ancient trading routes in the Yemeni desert, Crusaders' castles in Syria, uncharted regions of Arabia and Alexander the Great's path through Turkey, often travelling alone through dangerous and uncomfortable territories -once having to be airlifted to safety by the RAF. During the Second World War she worked for the Foreign Office in Baghdad and Cairo and made an ill-fated tour of America for the Ministry of Information. She married late -and unwisely -but continued to travel and write well into old age, going to the Himalayas aged 89, and lived to be 100, leaving a legacy of over thirty volumes of travel writings, autobiography and letters. Her life reads like an adventure story, imbued with the captivating spirit of the East. Jane Geniesse's ebullient yet touching account of Stark's life uncovers the complexity and charm surrounding someone who was both hugely feted and yet repeatedly disappointed in her private life -a romantic, a complete original and an inspiration to those who followed.

Born in Paris 1893, a precocious and tough Freya Stark spent her childhood wondering across Europe, speaking three languages by the time she was five. She became one of the twentieth-century's most remarkable and inspirational women. Renowned for her flamboyant and unorthodox behaviour, Freya was also self-disciplined, courageous and remained fearlessly independent throughout her life. As an explorer she was unconventional, always travelling alone, without money or support. Her expeditions in Persia and the Hadhramaut during the thirties established her reputation not only as a great traveller and writer, but also as a geographer, historian and archaeologist. Caroline Moorehead brilliantly captures Freya's extraordinary and eventful life that was tempered by a constant struggle against ill health and loneliness, in this compelling biography.

An anthology of her war memoirs edited ... and drawn from her books Shooting the Russian War (1942), Purple Heart Valley (1944), and Dear Fatherland, rest quietly (1946).