In the meantime she was developing a desire to travel to the Middle East to learn the languages there. But she regularly traveled to London in order to take Arabic language courses at the School of Oriental Studies. After the war her father, a sculptor, gave her a small estate in Mortola on the Riviera, where she grew grapes, vegetables, and flowers. Shocked, Freya moved to London, where for a time she worked as a censor of international correspondence – good preparation for her later collaboration with the Ministry of Information in London, where she would be employed as an expert on the Middle East during the Second World War.įrom 1917 until the end of the war she was active again as a nurse in Italy. Her engagement to a physician from Bologna was short-lived. Later in life, when she had her own money, she was known for her elegant and extravagant clothes/outfits.

She had problems with self-esteem, feeling awkward and unattractive because she had to wear clothes tailored by her mother. In 1912 she began her studies in history at Bedford College in London, but broke them off with the onset of the First World War, when she left for Bologna to work as a nurse.

In spite of her delicate and sickly constitution, Freya Stark was tough and tenacious. Riding and mountaineering were part of her education, and with her mother and grandmother as role models she developed into an unconventional woman who was as at home in elegant salons as she was able to deal with poverty and physical exertion. Raised in Italy and England by liberal-minded parents, Freya Stark already spoke several languages as a child.

Baghdad Sketches by Freya Stark