Dreaming of Samarkand

by Martin Booth

Hutchinson, 2010, [First Edition thus], ISBN 009173813X, decorated end-papers, hardcover, dust-jacket

Near Fine Condition, minor edge and shelf wear, no inscriptions, dust-jacket shows minor edge and shelf wear (see photographs)

“The years immediately preceding the Great War saw the growth of espionage projects in the Middle East and the new M15.  Both Flecker and Lawrence were in the employ of D. G. Hogarth, the noted archaeologist and spy-master who recruited them from Oxford University.  Lawrence was to become an international figure, a complex, acentric and self-obsessed man.  Flecker was donnish, the son of a headmaster, aesthetic and a bisexual.
The two men shared their books and thoughts and a love both spiritual and sexual grew between them.  The story develops into one of deception, illness and death – the partly Jewish Flecker who aided the man who loved Arabs, the supposed enemies of Zion; the Englishman, Lawrence, who went native and supported the Arab cause – only to help bring about its downfall in the shape of the Balfour Declaration years later.”