Barbara Toy was an Australian-British travel writer, theatrical director, playwright and screenplay writer.
In 1959, author Barbara Toy, famous for her intrepid and solo overland travels in North Africa, set out in her trademark Land Rover to drive from Libya to Ethiopia. Alone, she crossed the Sahara Desert and the equatorial forests of the Congo before ascending the Ethiopian highlands.
Her Ethiopian travels took her from modern Addis Ababa to the ancient ruins of Aksum, through “bandit-ridden” countryside to the summit of Mount Wehni on a quest to explore the legend of the Queen of Sheba. Full of good humour and grit, In Search of Sheba chronicles a remarkable feat of endurance and adventure by one of the twentieth century’s greatest travelers.
About the author
Barbara Toy was an Australian-British travel writer, theatrical director, playwright and screenplay writer. In Search of Sheba was originally published back in 1961 but has recently been re-released as part of the John Murray Journeys series: Ten Timeless Journeys by Ten Remarkable Authors. The Journeys series celebrates John Murray’s history of publishing exceptional travel writing by rediscovering classic journeys from the past, introduced by some of today’s most exciting writers.
From solo journeys through the Sahara (In Search of Sheba) to canoeing the length of the Mississippi, from the badlands of Utah’s canyons to the black tents of Central Asian nomads, from Calcutta to Samarkand, Afghanistan to Ethiopia, the series has captured the risk and wonder that comes from all good travelling, opening imaginations to unfamiliar places and cultures. Spanning a period from the 1890s to the 1980s, these journeys give fresh perspectives not only on the places and times in which they were originally published but on the place and time we find ourselves in now.
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