The lure of the desert

The great deserts of the world hold a compelling attraction for a rare breed of men who are ‘unwise and curiously planned’. Once under the spell of that seemingly infinite arena of sand and stone, many are helplessly hooked. It is an arena where the sun burns down relentlessly during the day, to be replaced at night by a hauntingly beautiful backdrop of brilliant stars. Where the moon shines with a light which softens the austere outline of rocks and hills and casts a diffused greyness over the desert sands.

This well-organised and beautifully produced book lists many of the men and women who have been hopelessly seduced by the desert’s spell; romantics, explorers, adventurers, solitaries and escapees — all victims of desert seduction — many who ‘travel for lust of knowing what should not be known’.

Neatly divided into areas of the world where vast deserts are found, the concise biographies of great explorers who were the first to venture on to the ‘desert’s dusty face’ are inserted into their respective areas.