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Ionia: A Quest
When Freya Stark travelled along Turkey's west coast in 1952 she met only one other tourist. Today, this region is the most popular in the country, but to travel with Stark--whose aim was to 'create a guidebook in time'--is to experience Turkey in a richer & more inspiring way than any modern guide or history can provide. In the ruins & vanished cities of Ionia lay the record of history--of what made us what we are today. Her longing to know more, to unearth the living from the wreckage of the past & to discover the ingredients that shaped the ancient world drove her forward. With Herodotus as her travelling companion, she began her quest in Smyrna & traced a route thru the ancient cities of Asia Minor, which were haunted by echoes of Odysseus & Alexander the Great, by the poets, philosophers, musicians & mathematicians who flourished in this world. Wandering beyond the boundaries of travel, she entered into the soul of ancient Ionia, examining the ever-present tension between East & West & the elements of religion, society & commerce that forged the culture of a civilisation. A journey thru the ancient world that resonates in the modern, her Ionia is travel writing at its most elegant & history at its most dynamic--a powerful & beautifully-rendered classic of 20th century literature.
263 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1954
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About the author
Freya Stark
129 books176 followersFreya Stark was born in Paris, where her parents were studying art. Her mother, Flora, was an Italian of Polish/German descent; her father, Robert, an English painter from Devon.
In her lifetime she was famous for her experiences in the Middle East, her writing and her cartography. Freya Stark was not only one of the first Western women to travel through the Arabian deserts (Hadhramaut), she often travelled solo into areas where few Europeans, let alone women, had ever been.
She spent much of her childhood in North Italy, helped by the fact that Pen Browning, a friend of her father, had bought three houses in Asolo. She also had a grandmother in Genoa. For her 9th birthday she received a copy of the One Thousand and One Nights, and became fascinated with the Orient. She was often ill while young, and confined to the house, so found an outlet in reading. She delighted in reading French, in particular Dumas, and taught herself Latin. When she was 13 she had an accident in a factory in Italy, when her hair got caught in a machine, and she had to spend four months getting skin grafts in hospital, which left her face slightly disfigured.
She later learned Arabic and Persian, studied history in London and during World War I worked as a nurse in Italy, where her mother had remained and taken a share in a business. Her sister, Vera, married the co-owner.
In November 1927 she visited Asolo for the first time in years, and later that month boarded a ship for Beirut, where her travels in the East began. She based herself first at the home of James Elroy Flecker in Lebanon and then in Baghdad, where she met the British high commissioner.
By 1931 she had completed three dangerous treks into the wilderness of western Iran, in parts of which no Westerner had ever been before, and had located the long-fabled Valleys of the Assassins (hashish-eaters). During the 1930s she penetrated the hinterland of southern Arabia, where only a handful of Western explorers had previously ventured and then never as far or as widely as she went.
During World War II, she joined the British Ministry of Information and contributed to the creation of a propaganda network aimed at persuading Arabs to support the Allies or at least remain neutral. She wrote more than two dozen books based on her travels, almost all of which were published by John Murray in London, with whom she had a successful and long-standing working relationship.
In her lifetime she was famous for her experiences in the Middle East, her writing and her cartography. Freya Stark was not only one of the first Western women to travel through the Arabian deserts (Hadhramaut), she often travelled solo into areas where few Europeans, let alone women, had ever been.
She spent much of her childhood in North Italy, helped by the fact that Pen Browning, a friend of her father, had bought three houses in Asolo. She also had a grandmother in Genoa. For her 9th birthday she received a copy of the One Thousand and One Nights, and became fascinated with the Orient. She was often ill while young, and confined to the house, so found an outlet in reading. She delighted in reading French, in particular Dumas, and taught herself Latin. When she was 13 she had an accident in a factory in Italy, when her hair got caught in a machine, and she had to spend four months getting skin grafts in hospital, which left her face slightly disfigured.
She later learned Arabic and Persian, studied history in London and during World War I worked as a nurse in Italy, where her mother had remained and taken a share in a business. Her sister, Vera, married the co-owner.
In November 1927 she visited Asolo for the first time in years, and later that month boarded a ship for Beirut, where her travels in the East began. She based herself first at the home of James Elroy Flecker in Lebanon and then in Baghdad, where she met the British high commissioner.
By 1931 she had completed three dangerous treks into the wilderness of western Iran, in parts of which no Westerner had ever been before, and had located the long-fabled Valleys of the Assassins (hashish-eaters). During the 1930s she penetrated the hinterland of southern Arabia, where only a handful of Western explorers had previously ventured and then never as far or as widely as she went.
During World War II, she joined the British Ministry of Information and contributed to the creation of a propaganda network aimed at persuading Arabs to support the Allies or at least remain neutral. She wrote more than two dozen books based on her travels, almost all of which were published by John Murray in London, with whom she had a successful and long-standing working relationship.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
August 3, 2014
Ahh Freya Stark! A dauntless and learned traveller with poetic and philosophical sensibilities, she here took the legendarily unreliable Herodotus as her principle guide to Turkey/Asia Minor/the Levant, and unlike that classical historian-geographer, wrote with scrupulous honesty, humility and frank subjectivity. While imaginatively inhabiting an ancient past full of warring Greeks, Persians, Lydians and other contemporaries, she navigates a more immediate physical world of hospitable and helpful hosts, spectacular natural beauty and poorly protected ruins. Her transcendent experience at the theatre in Priene, and her description of the harmony of Greek buildings and roads with the landscape they inhabit, provide a surpassingly eloquent and sensitive insight into the pervasive appeal of the 'classical' Greek world. I didn't find this an easy read though, and readers who don't share Stark's passion might well find it a slog.
February 17, 2013
I obtained this book while helping the founder of the public library in Bridgman, Michigan, Ms. Roth, go through the material that had been donated. I'd recommend books for retention, books for discard and she'd make the final decision. Of the books discarded, I had my pick.
Someone in Bridgman had been a classics buff. I presumed the past tense as I couldn't imagine anyone wanting to toss classics like Jaeger's Paideia or Gunter's Greek Thinkers. In any case, I took all of the ancient history Ms. Roth didn't want. One of them was Freya Stark's Ionia.
Years later I got around to reading this unknown-to-me author while lounging on the patio of our Michigan neighbors, the Trauts, watching the sun set over the lake. I wasn't impressed. Stark's enthusiasm was a bit too pronounced for my tastes.
Someone in Bridgman had been a classics buff. I presumed the past tense as I couldn't imagine anyone wanting to toss classics like Jaeger's Paideia or Gunter's Greek Thinkers. In any case, I took all of the ancient history Ms. Roth didn't want. One of them was Freya Stark's Ionia.
Years later I got around to reading this unknown-to-me author while lounging on the patio of our Michigan neighbors, the Trauts, watching the sun set over the lake. I wasn't impressed. Stark's enthusiasm was a bit too pronounced for my tastes.
June 24, 2010
This was more history than travel but still I love Stark's writing - a expert at simile. Again, she emphasizes the importance of letting people live their lives without trying to impose another way on them - a idea quite againt tose of the time she lived in: We produce it ( inferiority complex), perhaps, by not being tender enough with traditions other than our own, by not accepting all good where we find it, weaving it in with our own good, remembering that the mixture makes the vintage and the Absolute is out of reach.
February 17, 2011
This is the sort of travel writing I would like to do, interweaving current observations with some history, but mostly just enjoying the view and enlarging on that, without so much of the self-importance that can plague such recordings.
Read
February 12, 2011A magnificent book written by a remarkable woman who travels to out of the way ancient places and makes them come alive.
Currently reading
May 1, 2011really really good so far-!
Want to read
April 23, 2013Freya Stark was mentioned in To War with Whitaker
By Hermoine Ranfurly. They met during WW2.
By Hermoine Ranfurly. They met during WW2.
September 19, 2013
A wonderful read - learned and literate.
Read
July 8, 2019Beautiful writing and interesting thoughts, as usual. This book was more focused on the history of Ionia and the western coast of Turkey (ancient people, civilizations and events), in comparison to her last book that I read, The Southern Gates of Arabia, which gave more of a sense of her travels and the current inhabitants and places.
September 27, 2025
There seemed to be more about ancient history than there was about travel. so a bit disappointing.
June 11, 2022
Ionia
Freya Stark
I picked this up after enjoying Inka Kola so much when I was in Peru. At the time I was planning on travelling to Turkey, though I still haven't been. I've not come across an author like Freya Stark before. As you follow her account of a journey through Turkey's western coast, you are given the pleasure of seeing the world through the lens of her historical knowledge, as if you are experiencing every past event that has happened in each location. It is a difficult read, and her style is very dense and sometimes convoluted, but ultimately it's an interesting look into someone else's travels.
4/5
Freya Stark
I picked this up after enjoying Inka Kola so much when I was in Peru. At the time I was planning on travelling to Turkey, though I still haven't been. I've not come across an author like Freya Stark before. As you follow her account of a journey through Turkey's western coast, you are given the pleasure of seeing the world through the lens of her historical knowledge, as if you are experiencing every past event that has happened in each location. It is a difficult read, and her style is very dense and sometimes convoluted, but ultimately it's an interesting look into someone else's travels.
4/5
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews