The Arabs.

Inscribed on front free endpaper: 'To Mr. Loveday/ With the Author's compliments/ Bertram Thomas/ May 1937'. Presentation copies of this work are scarce.

Bertram Thomas's (1892-1950) 'first crossing of the Empty Quarter, albeit by the shortest and easiest route, assured him a permanent place in the history of European exploration of Arabia. He was admired by T. E. Lawrence (who wrote a preface to one of his books) and by his successor Wilfred Thesiger, who found twenty years later that Thomas was remembered by the Bedouin as an honourable, brave, and tolerant man' (ODNB).