Adventures of a Desert Queen

A Lecture by Gertrude Bell

Adapted and performed by Betsey Means
Directed by Eileen Vorbach

I am happy in helping to forward what I profoundly believe to be the best thing for this country and the wishes of the best of its people.

Actress Betsey Means as Gertrude Bell, black and white image with portrait of Bell inset

Gertrude Bell (1868-1926) was a lone English woman in the male Muslim world of the Middle East; a famous author who wrote about the Arabs, an acknowledged archeologist, a courageous traveler who dined with china and crystal, dressed in extravagant clothes, rode on a camel and horse and penetrated dangerous regions of the Arabian desert.

Ms. Bell was the most powerful woman in the British Empire in the years after WW1. She was named to the high post of Oriental Secretary and achieved nothing less than a miracle by creating the modern state of Iraq.

Gertrude was the winner of the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society; the honorary director of antiquities at the Baghdad Museum; and the recipient of a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

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