DICKSON, Violet.
Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington
Forty Years in Kuwait. First edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the title page, "With the author's compliments. Violet Dickson. Kuwait 17.5.71." This detailed autobiography describes meeting with Ibn Saud and societal changes brought about by the oil boom.Dickson (1896-1991) was married to Harold Dickson, the British political agent in Bahrain (1919-20) and Kuwait (1929-36) and subsequently an employee of the Kuwait Oil Company. She stayed in Kuwait after her husband's death in 1959 until the Iraqi invasion in 1990, becoming a prominent member of the expatriate community. She also published The Wild Flowers of Kuwait and Bahrain in 1955. The desert flower, Horwoodia dicksoniae, is named after her.Below Dickson's inscription is a second: "Susan: and mine, in the hope that when your book on your years in Kuwait is published - based on your letters home - you will let me have a complimentary copy. Len. Kuwait. '71." Both the recipient and the inscriber remain unidentified.
Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.