Stark seems to be almost oblivious to her gender, or at least to the perils that it entails to a modern reader. I’m sure that there are several aspects to that; undoubtedly she was a formidable woman, and had very little patience for the idea of gender-based restrictions (and was happily in a fortunate enough situation position to make that stick). But another aspect – and I can’t back this up with data, I’m afraid, so it will have to stand as a gut reaction – is that travel, particularly for women, seems to have become harder and more restrictive over the course of the last half of the 20th Century. The Middle East and North Africa stand out for this – a pre-menopausal woman now can’t travel to Saudi Arabia without a chaperone, nor really do much of anything when she’s there – but the era of freer, cheaper travel and immediate mass-media does seem to have eroded the curiosity-borne courtesy to foreigners that many local populations once upheld.

She seems to have remained well-regarded at home. She worked for the Ministry of Information during the War, in what I suppose would traditionally have been a man’s job. On the other hand, she’s still overshadowed by Thesiger, despite being more profligate (and, honestly, somewhat more interesting).

A work friend of mine is currently reading a biography of Gertrude Bell, and it sounds as though she and Stark would have been great friends had they met. These women explorers/travellers/archaeologists are incredibly inspiring. But ironically it seems as though they had more freedom, and were more widely accepted and respected, in the countries they travelled in than they would have been as intelligent, independent women at home in the UK or US. Does Stark ever suggest it has been more difficult for her to travel *because* she is a woman? Or does she ignore her sex altogether and just get on with it?