Gennem Wahhabiternes Land Paa Kamelryg

Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1913. First edition. Near Fine. Octavo. Original publisher's pictorial green cloth lettered in gilt. Half-tone frontispiece (with tissue guard), black and white illustrations after photographs and line drawings throughout, large folding coloured regional map in end pocket. Extremities a little bumped, gilt on spine slightly dulled, otherwise an excellent, Near Fine example, internally fresh and clean and pleasingly not ex-library (as is often found with this title).

An important account of Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, one praised and supported by T. E. Lawrence who was instrumental in the publication of the unillustrated English edition of 1916. The work stands as the lone account of Kuwait from this period. The journey cost Raunkiaer his health, dying from tuberculosis soon after returning in 1915. The large folding map is of Eastern Saudi Arabia (including Riyadh), Southern Iraq and Kuwait.

"Early in 1912, the Dane Barclay Raunkiaer travelled in eastern Arabia on behalf of the Royal Danish Geography Society to reconnoiter for a proposed Danish expedition into the Southern desert. Various parts of Raunkiaer's route (Kuwait-Buraida-Riyadh-al-Hufuf-'Ujair) coincided with parts of the journeys of Palgrave (1862), Guarmani (1864), Pelly (1865), Doughty (1878) and Shakespear. Raunkiaer's scientific intentions were largely thwarted by practical problems, but his account of Kuwait in 1912 was praised by T.E. Lawrence, and he was the first European to visit Riyadh for fifty years. In Riyadh he met 'Abd al-Rahman Ibn Sa'ud father of Abd al-'Aziz Ibn Sa'ud. While in Kuwait Raunkiaer became seriously ill; he never recovered, and he died in 1915 aged twenty-five" (Cottrell, p. 119).

Alvin J. Cottrell, ed.,The Persian Gulf States: A General Survey, 1980. Near Fine.