Freya Stark

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Famous as a twentieth-century explorer and traveller, FS was also a prominent travel-writer, essayist, autobiographer, letter-writer, geographic historian, photo journalist, and cartographer. Reprints of Stark's texts, along with recent biographies by Molly Izzard (1993) and Jane Fletcher Geniesse (1999), and other critical works, have contributed to the lasting interest in her career.
  • BirthName: Freya Madeline Stark
  • Married: Perowne
  • Pseudonym: Tharaya
  • Titled: Dame Freya Stark
  • Indexed: Mrs Freya Stark
Photograph of a head-and-shoulders painting of Freya Stark by Herbert Arnould Olivier, 1923. She sits in front of a wooden cabinet, with many drawers and an inset mirror, her arm resting on its shelf. She is wearing a simple black tunic over a sheer white blouse, and she has jaw-length brown hair tied with a black ribbon. National Portrait Gallery.

Milestones

Probably 31 January 1893

FS was born two months prematurely in her parents' Paris studio.
Based on the claim of her friend Evelyn Lambert to have seen an earlier date on FS 's passport, and also from the date on her sister's grave, biographer Jane Fletcher Geniesse suggests that Stark may have been a year older than she claimed.
Geniesse, Jane Fletcher. Passionate Nomad. Random House, 1999.
369n6
Izzard, Molly. Freya Stark: A Biography. Hodder and Stoughton, 1993.
5, 249

November 1928

Writing as Tharaya, FS published her first article in Cornhill Magazine.
Geniesse, Jane Fletcher. Passionate Nomad. Random House, 1999.
84

May 1934

FS established an instant literary reputation with her travel book The Valleys of the Assassins, about her research in remote parts of Persia. She dedicated the book to one of her mentors, Professor William Paton Ker .
Stark, Freya. The Valleys of the Assassins. J. Murray, 1934.
prelims
Geniesse, Jane Fletcher. Passionate Nomad. Random House, 1999.
38, 156

October 1934

FS became the fourth person and first woman awarded the Royal Asiatic Society 's Burton Memorial Award.
Izzard, Molly. Freya Stark: A Biography. Hodder and Stoughton, 1993.
79

May 1936

FS published The Southern Gates of Arabia, the first of three travel books recounting her trips through the Hadhramaut region of Yemen.
Geniesse, Jane Fletcher. Passionate Nomad. Random House, 1999.
195
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.

1988

At the age of ninety-three, FS published Over the Rim of the World: Selected Letters, edited by Caroline Moorehead .
Geniesse, Jane Fletcher. Passionate Nomad. Random House, 1999.
364

9 May 1993

At the age of one hundred FS died at her home in Italy.
Geniesse, Jane Fletcher. Passionate Nomad. Random House, 1999.
362

Biography

Birth and Early Life

Probably 31 January 1893

FS was born two months prematurely in her parents' Paris studio.
Based on the claim of her friend Evelyn Lambert to have seen an earlier date on FS 's passport, and also from the date on her sister's grave, biographer Jane Fletcher Geniesse suggests that Stark may have been a year older than she claimed.
Geniesse, Jane Fletcher. Passionate Nomad. Random House, 1999.
369n6
Izzard, Molly. Freya Stark: A Biography. Hodder and Stoughton, 1993.
5, 249

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