1973. Lesley Blanch by Henry Clarke © The Condé Nast Publications Inc
Welcome to the website of the celebrated author and distinguished traveller, Lesley Blanch, MBE.
As Joe Boyd writes in THE GUARDIAN: "There is something of a cult around Lesley Blanch. Philip Mansel, author of Constantinople and other works of historical scholarship, calls her 'not a school, a trend, or a fashion, but a true original'."
A scholarly romantic, Lesley Blanch has influenced and inspired generations of writers, readers and critics. Her first book, The Wilder Shores Of Love, pioneered a new kind of group biography focusing on women escaping the boredom of convention, and has never gone out of print in English since original publication in 1954. If you are not familiar with her world, you can get a taste of her life and work as you browse. She is one of the last of a breed who knew something of the Middle East as it once was, before conflict and turmoil became the essence of relations between the Arab World and the West.
Arriving at the front gate of her home, steps wind upwards through a green tunnel of leaves, leading to a dreamlike inner sanctum. The terraced garden is like an extension of the house, with outside rooms for different times of day. Lesley Blanch has always lived amidst a harmonious assembly of esoteric objects from distant corners of the earth, and is admired by her friends for her decorative flair. She likes to juxtapose a quirky mix of objects found somewhere out of the ordinary. Her rooms once vibrated with "bargains and insane extravagances — a traveller's haul" of the rich and the strange. You can get a feel for her environment from a selection of photos from her archive as you view.
In Memoriam. Lesley Blanch died in her sleep in the early hours of Monday 7 May 2007. Since this website was created with her approval and full cooperation, its core content is being left as it was first published online in 2006.
Drawing of a Hungarian fiddler by Lesley Blanch taken from Round The World in Eighty Dishes © Lesley Blanch Archive
Site compiled and edited by Georgia de Chamberet at BookBlast Ltd with the co-operation of Lesley Blanch
Special thanks to Susan Train at Condé Nast Publications Inc., for her suggestions and support
Programming and design by Ben Fiagbe at Factor IT Ltd