Born in the age of Revolution, Lady Hester Stanhope, is remembered today as a passionate and intrepid traveler in an age when women were discouraged from being adventurous.
She blazed a trail across the Middle East a century before TE Lawrence, became the first Western woman to enter Palmyra and her exploits have been celebrated by numerous writers and artists including George Eliot, James Joyce, Picasso and WH Auden. As some have written about her, she went where she wanted and did as she pleased.