A Desert Journal : With the Scarce Wrapper And Signed By All Three Authors: Very scarce in what would appear to be the earliest issue of binding and wrapper

The First UK printing published by Constable and Hodder & Stoughton, London in 1934. The BOOK is in Very Good++ or better condition. It is complete with the sixteen two-tone photographic plates and the folding map to rear, as called for. Black, white and red folding map to rear, shows : 'Map of Sinkiang (Chinese Turkestan) marking each Oasis on the main trade route across the Gobi Desert.' Royal-blue boards with white titles to spine and white facsimile signatures of the three authors to the front board. Light off-setting to the front and rear free endpapers. Sporadic spotting to the text-block which encroaches onto the pages in a few places with a little dustiness to the upper text-block. Map clean and bright. A very tiny penned inscription to the last page. The scarce photographic WRAPPER is complete and is in Very Good or better condition. Mild edge-wear with some toning and light spotting to the spine. A very tiny penned inscription to the rear upper cover. The wrapper looks very attractive in the removable Brodart archival cover. The book has been Signed by all three authors (who have included their initials as well) to a title page from another copy which has been tipped into the front of this copy. 'A Desert Journal' records in letters the three women's experiences as they traveled on their missionary journeys in Central Asia on behalf of the China Inland Mission to China, Tibet, Kashmir, Mongolia and Turkestan. 'These Desert Journals [from June 18th, 1928 to September 21st, 1932] are personal letters sent home during a period of years spent on missionary journeys in central Asia. They were written in unusual places and in diverse circumstances. Sometimes in the shade of a Tibetan Lamasery, sometimes in the Palace of a Mongol Khan, occasionally from the sand hills of the Edzin Gol and often in a mud shelter of the great desert of Gobi.' (Quote from the preface by the authors). 'We are writing from a Tibetan Pass in the Richthofen Mountains. We are nomads once more, and our home is a small tent in which three tidy people can live in comparative comfort. By night the floor space is covered with bed bags, but during the daytime we pile these up to make a divan and a respectable reception-room is evolved. This well-made double-fly tent, lined with yellow cotton, fitted with capacious pockets and finished off with a fringed and stencilled dado of Indian design, is an unqualified success. Its powers of resistance to the wind are considerable. The gale which swept down the valley last night laid the preaching tent flat, but we lay snug and safe.' (Quote from Journal entry: Lamasery of the Tibetan Border, June 1st, 1929, (page 46). Very scarce with such attributes. More images available on request. Ashton Rare Books welcomes direct contact.