First edition of the author's first book. Longmans. 1959. Octavo. xvi, 326pp. Photo frontispiece, 68 further photo plates, 9 maps, one of the Empty Quarter folding in pocket at the end of the book. Original cream cloth, gilt and black lettering to spine, light staining to upper board. Original dust wrapper, chipped, discoloured, with paper repair to verso, in protective wrapper. Light stain to lower corner of frontispiece. Contents crisp, folding map pristine. Signature to upper margin of ffep. St John Philby said, "The crowning touched have been placed on this exploratory activity in Arabia by Wilfred Thesiger who is probably the greatest of all the explorers". Thesiger spent five years in and around the Empty Quarter, the half million square miles of one of the cruellest deserts of the world. Before him no other traveller, European or Arab - apart from the Bedu who live there - had dared to cross these empty wastes. Travelling without European companions, and living as an Arab, Thesiger's experiences and knowledge of the desert are unique - and will remain so, for the world he describes is now vanishing. Its age-old civilisation and way of life have succumbed to the invasion of technicians in search of oil.