Book Details

From the acclaimed biographer of The Sisters, the story of one of the most remarkable women of the 19th century, who traveled far and wide on a quest for true love Produced from Jane Digby's diaries, this sympathetic and dramatic portrait of a rare woman explores a fascinating glimpse into the centuries-old Bedouin tradition that is now almost lost. A celebrated aristocratic beauty, Jane Digby married Lord Ellenborough at 17. Their divorce a few years later was one of England's most scandalous at that time. In her quest for passionate fulfillment she had lovers which included an Austrian prince, King Ludwig I of Bavaria, and a Greek count whose infidelities drove her to travel Eastern Asia. In Syria, she found the love of her life, a Bedouin nobleman, Sheikh Medjuel el Mezrab, who was 20 years her junior. During the remainder of her life she adopted for six months of each year the exotic but uniquely harsh existence of a desert nomad living in the famous black goathair tents of Arabia; the remaining months she spent in the splendid palace she built for herself and Medjuel in Damascus. As wife to the Sheikh and mother to his tribe this passionate woman found not only genuine fulfillment but further adventures, all of which she committed each year to her diary.