In 1929 she moved to Baghdad, where she began learning Persian. John Murray (1884-1967), one of Britain’s leading publishers. Her account of this trip in the Cornhill magazine brought her to the attention of its editor. In May 1929, accompanied by a woman friend, she explored the Jabal Druze south of Damascus without obtaining permission from the French authorities, although the areas had been placed under martial law following an unsuccessful rebellion. In September 1917 her ambulance unit became part of the famous retreat that followed the defeat of the Italian army by the Austrians at Caporetto.Īfter the war, having taken some private lessons in Arabic, she enrolled at the School of Oriental Studies in London before moving to Lebanon and Syria for further study. At the outbreak of war in August 1914, she abandoned her studies and volunteered as a nurse on the Italian front. In 1912 she enrolled in Bedford College, University of London, where she studied for a degree in history.

At the age of 12 she suffered a serious accident at a carpet factory near Genoa, part-owned by her mother, in which one ear was damaged, leaving scars on her head for life. She was educated privately, and by the time she had grown up, she was fluent in Italian, English, German, and French. She was born to parents who divided their lives between England and Italy. Her 1934 book The Valley of the Assassins and Other Persian Travels belongs to the canon of English travel literature.

Baghdad Sketches by Freya Stark