Lesley Blanch

Lesley Blanch, MBE, FRSL (6 June 1904, London – 7 May 2007, Garavan near Menton, France[1]) was a British writer, historian and traveller. She is best known for The Wilder Shores of Love, about Isabel Burton (who married the Arabist and explorer Richard), Jane Digby el-Mezrab (Lady Ellenborough, the society beauty who ended up living in the Syrian desert with a Bedouin chieftain), Aimée du Buc de Rivéry (a French convent woman captured by pirates and sent to the Sultan's harem in Istanbul), and Isabelle Eberhardt (a Swiss linguist who felt most comfortable in boy's clothes and lived among the Arabs in the Sahara).[2]

Life and career

Blanch attended St. Paul's Girls' School, Hammersmith from 1915 to 1921, went on to study at the Slade School of Art, and began her career as a scenery designer and book illustrator. Between 1937 and 1944 she was features editor of the UK edition of Vogue.[2]

In April 1945, she married the French novelist-diplomat Romain Gary. Life in the French diplomatic service took them to the Balkans, Turkey, North Africa, Mexico and the United States. In the United States, they associated with Aldous Huxley and with Hollywood stars such as Gary Cooper, Sophia Loren and Laurence Olivier.[3]

Gary left her for American actress Jean Seberg.[3] Lesley Blanch and Gary were divorced in 1963. Blanch continued to travel from her home in Paris, and saw old friends Nancy Mitford, Violet Trefusis, Rebecca West and the Windsors. She was a close friend of Gerald de Gaury, who gave her insights into middle eastern customs and culture.[4] The society photographer Cecil Beaton was also a lifelong friend.[2]

The best known of her 12 books is The Wilder Shores of Love (1954), about four women who all "followed the beckoning Eastern star." The book also inspired the American artist Cy Twombly, who named a painting after the novel.[5]

Blanch's love of Russia, instilled in her by a friend of her parents whom she simply called The Traveller, is recounted in Journey into the Mind's Eye, Fragments of an Autobiography (1968, reissued 2018)[6] which is part travel book, part love story. As well as awakening her to sex, he whetted her appetite with exotic tales of Siberia and Central Asia.[7] The Traveller was possibly identified as Theodore Komisarjevsky.[8]

Her trip to Iran and meeting Empress Farah Pahlavi in April 1975 resulted in a biography of the empress named "Farah, Shahbanou of Iran" on 1978.

Lesley Blanch considered her best book to be The Sabres of Paradise (the biography of Imam Shamyl and history of Tsarist Russian rule in early 19th century Georgia and the Caucasus).[9]

Awards and honours

A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Lesley Blanch was appointed MBE in 2001, and in 2004 the French government awarded her the medal of Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Death

She celebrated her 100th birthday in 2004. She died just one month shy of 103.[10]

Publications
  • 1954: The Wilder Shores of Love London: Phoenix Press | New York: Simon & Schuster
  • 1955: Round the World in 80 Dishes, the World Through the Kitchen Window (cookbook) London: Grub Street
  • 1957: The Game of Hearts: Harriette Wilson and her Memoirs (edited and introduced by Lesley Blanch)
  • 1957: Harriette Wilson's Memoirs (selected and edited by Lesley Blanch). London: Phoenix Press, 2003
  • 1960: The Sabres of Paradise: Conquest and Vengeance in the Caucasus (a biography of Imam Shamyl and history of Tsarist Russian rule in early 19th century Georgia and the Caucasus), London: BookBlast ePublishing
  • 1963: Under a Lilac-Bleeding Star, Travels and Travellers
  • 1965: The Nine Tiger Man, a Tale of Low Behaviour in High Places, London: BookBlast ePublishing
  • 1968: Journey into the Mind's Eye, Fragments of an Autobiography London: Eland Books
  • 1974: Pavilions of the Heart, the Four Walls of Love
  • 1978: Farah, Shahbanou of Iran
  • 1983: Pierre Loti: Portrait of an Escapist
  • 1989: From Wilder Shores, the Tables of my Travels (a collection of travel and food writings)
  • 1998: Romain, un regard particulier; traduit de l'anglais par Jean Lambert. Arles: Actes Sud
  • 2015: On the Wilder Shores of Love: A Bohemian Life London: Virago

References
  1. "Obituary". The Guardian. 10 May 2007. Retrieved 10 May 2007.
  2. Fowler, Christoper. The Book of Forgotten Authors (2017), pp. 27-29
  3. McGuinness, Mark. "An eccentric romantic's life: Lesley Blanch (1904–2007)", The Sydney Morning Herald, Weekend Edition, 19–20 May 2007, p. 53
  4. Fox, Margalit. 11 May 2007. Lesley Blanch, 103, a Writer, Traveler and Adventure-Seeker, Dies. The New York Times
  5. "Cy Twombly". www.vlinder-01.dds.nl.
  6. NYRB Retrieved 15 July 2018.
  7. Isabella Burton, Tara (8 January 2016). "The Countries We Think We See". The Paris Review. Retrieved 12 September 2016.
  8. Chamberet, Georgia de (24 January 2017). "Georgia de Chamberet: 'Lesley Blanch never apologised for who she was'". the Guardian. Retrieved 26 August 2020.
  9. Collins, Will (16 September 2017). "The Secret History of Dune". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 20 October 2017.
  10. "Obituary". The Telegraph. 9 May 2007. Archived from the original on 19 May 2007. Retrieved 10 May 2007.
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