Contact Information:
Special Collections
Academy Library
UNSW@ADFA
CRICOS Provider Code: 00100G
Australian Defence Force Academy
Canberra ACT 2600
Phone: +61 2 6268 6270
Fax: +61 2 6247 2324
Email: specialcollections@adfa.edu.au
URL: http://www.lib.adfa.edu.au/speccoll/speccoll.htm
| Prepared by: | Special Collections |
| Date completed: | November 2003 |
| Encoded by: | Special Collections |
| Last updated: | April 2007 |
© Australian Defence Force Academy. All rights reserved.
| Creator: | Stark, Freya, 1883-1993 |
| Title: | Papers of Freya Stark |
| Date Range: | 1942-1975 |
| Reference Number: | MS 118 |
| Extent: | 7 cm (2 boxes) |
| Repository: | Academy Library, UNSW@ADFA |
| Abstract: | Correspondence from Freya Stark to Sir Harry Luke and correspondence from Stewart Perowne, newspaper clippings and photographs. |
The papers of Freya Stark include correspondence from Freya Stark to Sir Harry Luke, and correspondence from Stark's former husband Stewart Perowne, dated from 1/6/1942 to 17/8/1960. Seven unidentified photographs from the Middle East are included, as are photographs of four of Freya's letters. An additional eight photographs of correspondence, along with twelve negatives are included.
Dame Freya Stark (1893-1993) was famous as an explorer of remote Middle Eastern areas and as a travel writer. She was in her mid-thirties before embarking on her life of solitary travel in ancient realms, setting out late in 1927 and basing herself at first in Lebanon and then in Iraq.
During the 1930's she penetrated the hinterland of Southern Arabia, determining the identity and routes of the great incense trade of the classical world. Her mapping and other geographical discoveries earned her a scholarly reputation. Freya Stark was the first woman to receive the Burton medal of the Royal Asiatic Society, (1934) for her writings, explorations and mapping work in the Middle-East. She received the Founder's medal of the Royal Geographic Society in 1942. Freya Stark became a Dame of the British Empire in 1972.
Among her numerous writings, she has published a four-volume autobiography and a trilogy of her travels in Turkey.
Freya Stark died in Italy in 1993, a little more than three months past her 100th birthday.
Papers of Freya Stark, Academy Library, UNSW@ADFA, Australian Defence Force Academy, MS 118, Box [Number], Folder [Number].
Further material relating to Freya Stark is located in the Academy Library, UNSW@ADFA, including a thesis entitled Freya Stark creative invalid, travel writer and autobiographer : a study of the autobiographical and travel writings of Dame Freya Stark, 1893-1993, by Christine Campbell, thesis (M.A. Honours), UNSW@ADFA, Dept. of English, 1993, and a publication entitled Coat-tails of empire : the ADFA letters : Freya Stark's correspondence with Sir Harry Luke, by Freya Stark, Australian Scholarly Editions Centre and Australian Defence Force Academy Library, Canberra, 1998.
Stark, Freya -- Archives.
Stark, Freya -- Correspondence.
Luke, Harry, Sir, 1884-1969 -- Correspondence.
Perowne, Stewart, 1901- -- Correspondence.