Admittedly, the first I heard of Gertrude Bell was from watching the 2015 biographical film “Queen of the Desert,” starring Nicole Kidman. I was enchanted as was Kidman with Bell’s character.
A fiercely independent woman, Bell decided to leave her comfortable life as a debutante in Victorian London and take to the desert. It was a visit to her uncle, who lived in Persia in 1892, that sparked a love affair with the Middle East: its people, culture, history, architecture and landscape. She loved it all.
Well-educated and well ahead of her time, Bell was certainly a keen cartographer, photographer, and archeologist. Her adventures, which were many and varied, are the stuff of stories and much has been written about her extraordinary life and accomplishments, her loves and her losses….