October 2023 – Rickaro Books

Tales of Charles Doughty and Arabia Deserta

Francis Dodd RA, etching portrait of Doughty.

Charles Montagu Doughty (1843-1927) was traveller, writer and poet extraordinaire. In a twenty-one month trek he became one of the greatest of Arabian travellers, as is recalled in his published record of the arduous journey that he undertook. It was on the 18th of November 1876 that he began his adventurous and perilous exploration of Arabia, that was eventually to lead to the two stately and challenging volumes some ten years later.

As we will observe the publication of this, one of the greatest travel writings was to be almost as trying as the journey that it describes. After his leaving of Arabia in 1878 it would take ten long years for the finished volumes to finally appear. This was only following some pressure from academics to be undertaken by the Cambridge University Press in an edition of only 500 copies, at the high price (for 1888) of 3 guineas.

The volumes can be a challenging read, being in Doughty’s distinctive and idiocentric style, part archaic, part linguistic. The passage to publication was to be a fraught one. In 1883 he presented a paper through Dr. T.G. Bonney to the Royal Geographical Society and the matter was then published in mere abstract form in the Society’s Proceedings of 1884, under the title Travels in North-Western Arabia (pp.382-399) together with a sketch map.

The bulky manuscript of his wanderings and ensuing research was submitted to a number of London publishers. One such was Macmillan & Co. It appears that co-founder of the famous publishing company, Alexander Macmillan was not too impressed, writing on the 24th April 1884 to Trelawney Saunders, who was an East India Company cartographer he was to state; ‘Not once but many times have attempts been made to read Mr Doughty’s MS by ourselves as well as by one of the ablest men we know. Upon no theory of scholarship is the style tolerable.‘ Macmillan goes on in the same missive, to quote from a letter written by a Rev. Dr. Percy Badger, ( this is George Percy Badger 1815-1888, missionary and orientalist) who amongst other things stated that the MS should be re-written. We will return to Dr. Badger later. Macmillan added to this letter to Saunders; ‘I like Mr Doughty exceedingly and should have been glad to publish his book, if it had been publishable.’ Publishers may tend to be cautious men, but these are extreme views on a book that was later to find such high acclaim, a status that it enjoys and indeed is enhanced to this day. It here has to be stated that this is not an easy book to read and in manuscript form must have been daunting in the extreme.

Upon eventual publication it gave rise to mixed reviews. These provided a reasonable launch for the volumes, for instance, The Times and The Spectator gave good, respectful reviews both appreciating to some extent the writing style. It was however reviewed in The Academy of Saturday July 28^th by no less than explorer, writer and orientalist, Richard Francis Burton who provided overall a reasonable if grudging lengthy mention. Although commencing his piece with ‘Mega Vivlion Mega Kakon [Big Book, Big Evil] will I fear be the verdict of the general reader’, and ended it, ‘I cannot for the life of me, see how the honoured name of England can gain aught by the travel of an Englishman who at all times and in all places is compelled to stand the buffet from knaves that smell of sweat’. He was perhaps writing in character, rather resenting the fact that Doughty had apparently neglected to read his Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Mecca, published in 1855/6 before setting off on his journey. Burton went on, ‘admiring the while the author’s unworldly unwisdom‘.

It was though an expensive set to purchase and sales for the Cambridge University Press were slow. However despite or because of these reviews and various personal mentions, the volumes eventually found a following, although Doughty was to make little from the publication, in fact quite the reverse. Over the years of all of the admirers none were greater than T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), a man needing no introduction to readers of our blogs. He describes the work as, ‘a bible of its kind…the more you learn of Arabia the more you find in Arabia Deserta. also ‘We call the book “Doughty” pure and simple, for it is a classic’. Original 1888 copies were by this time, the period of World War I, fetching very high prices. This being the case and wishing to see the work more available, Lawrence attempted to persuade publishers to reissue the two substantial volumes. He had already spoken, to no avail, to the Government Press in Cairo in 1916. D. G. Hogarth head of the Arab Bureau during WW1 had praised the volumes for their informative value. There was an abridgement by the literary reader and editor Edward Garnett, published by Duckworth in 1908, but they too declined to publish the two complete unabridged volumes because of costs involved. Finally in 1921 Lawrence assisted in enabling Jonathan Cape and the Medici Society to publish the two handsome volumes, again in an edition of 500 copies at a price of 9 guineas, but with a new Introduction by the now famous ‘Colonel’ T. E. Lawrence to aid initial sales. So ‘Introduced’, the volumes’ sales went well despite the price, Lawrence’s confidence in the work was amply justified. This was Jonathan Cape’s first publication and set a high standard for future work from this publisher, which exists, in name at least, to this day. The new 1921 edition retained at least a version of Doughty’s Preface to the first edition, alongside the new Introduction by T. E. Lawrence. In this, Lawrence is highly complimentary and he uses some extracts from his early text to his proposed ‘Seven Pillars of Wisdom’. This new, second edition was to sell well and finally establish the book in the pantheon amongst great travel literature. Lawrence was to withdraw his Introduction after the initial edition, only allowing its replacement at a later date.

However, we now return to Rev. Dr. Percy Badger who had suggested a re-write to Alexander Macmillan. In his Preface to the first edition, Doughty states that Badger has very kindly aided me, but he along with others is left out of the so called ‘first edition’ Preface reprinted in the Cape second edition, as well as the new enlarged Preface of that second edition. One wonders just why? In this new preface Doughty makes a point of thanking the academics who persuaded the Syndics of Cambridge University Press to invest in the 1888 edition.

Arabia Deserta remained in print with Cape for many years, a worthy tribute to the work and its sponsors. T. E. Lawrence had two copies of each edition as well as Doughty’s poetry volumes at his Clouds Hill library at the time of his death in 1935. The literary reader Edward Garnett, a great judge of merit in writers of all kinds, was to state, ‘Doughty needs no defenders’ in a letter dated October 31st 1935, in a response to Cyril Laken of the The Sunday Times regarding an article of Garnett’s that had been ‘mutilated ‘.

In his later life Doughty wrote and published a number of volumes of poetry. In a letter to T. E. Lawrence dated 6th November 1920, Doughty was to write, ‘When the printing and publishing of the Arabia Deserta volumes was completed, I found little interest was taken in such work at home, I felt therefore I had done therein what was in my power, and as the Arabs say, I might wash my hands of it: and could now turn to what I considered my true life’s work with the Muse’. The Muse in his poetry led him in a rather eccentric style, as might be expected, but again these found a following. The writer and great poet to be Edward Thomas reviewed Adam Cast Forth in 1908 and spoke of his unique power. T. E. Lawrence writing to Charlotte Shaw in 1927 was to write; ‘Adam cast Forth is splendid. Its goodness defies the lack of form which would have ruined a less great work, but otherwise I cannot see more than great effort and great failure in his poetic work’. So even he was ambivalent about the poetry, but in the same letter he was to state; ‘Arabia Deserta remains wonderful.’

These poetry volumes consisted of: The Dawn in Britain in six volumes (1906), Adam Cast Forth (1908), The Cliffs (1909), The Clouds (1912), The Titans (1916) and Mansoul; or, The Riddle of the World (1920) which he continued revising until the end of his life. These poems can be hard going, but they do have devoted followers, although by no means being an ‘easy’ read.

Doughty died on the 20th January 1926 and was cremated at Golders Green, amongst the mourners, one man in an R.A.F. uniform was present, it was T. E. Shaw (Lawrence of Arabia). Jonathan Cape suggested that
T. E. Lawrence write a biography of Doughty but he declined, later suggesting Siegfried Sassoon. In 1928 a biography was published written by Lawrence’s mentor, friend and admirer of Doughty, D. G. Hogarth, being seen through the press by his son, following Hogarth’s own death in 1927.

Doughty’s great work of Arabia Deserta will survive as a literary masterpiece alongside such as Ulysses, Moby Dick and perhaps indeed even Seven Pillars of Wisdom, (of this latter, the 1922 text of which was loaned to Doughty by Lawrence, he found hard to take, with its references to subjects difficult for him to comprehend). Doughty’s poetry may have a harder time in the modern world.

But if you wish to spend long hours of toil and pleasure experiencing life in nineteenth century Arabia, now long gone forever, with all of its sounds, hazards and smells, then Charles M. Doughty is your man and boon companion on the journey.