Lesley Blanch


Lesley Blanch, MBE, FRSL was a British author, historian and traveller. She is best known for The Wilder Shores of Love, about Isabel Burton, Jane Digby el-Mezrab, Aimée du Buc de Rivéry, and Isabelle Eberhardt.

Life and career

Blanch attended St. Paul's Girls' School, Hammersmith from 1915 to 1921.
In April 1945, she married the French novelist-diplomat Romain Gary. Life in the French diplomatic service took them to the Balkans, Turkey, North Africa, Mexico and the USA. In the USA they associated with Aldous Huxley and with Hollywood stars such as Gary Cooper, Sophia Loren and Laurence Olivier.
Gary left her for American actress Jean Seberg. Lesley Blanch and Gary were divorced in 1963. Blanch continued to travel from her home in Paris, and saw old friends Nancy Mitford, Violet Trefusis, Rebecca West and the Windsors. She was a close friend of Gerald de Gaury, who gave her insights into middle eastern customs and culture.
The best known of her 12 books is The Wilder Shores of Love, about four women who all "followed the beckoning Eastern star." The book also inspired the american artist Cy Twombly, who named a painting after the novel.
Blanch's love of Russia, instilled in her by a friend of her parents whom she simply called The Traveller, is recounted in Journey into the Mind's Eye, Fragments of an Autobiography which is part travel book, part love story. As well as awakening her to sex, he whetted her appetite with exotic tales of Siberia and Central Asia.
Lesley Blanch considered her best book to be The Sabres of Paradise.

Awards/Honours

A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Lesley Blanch was appointed MBE in 2001, and in 2004 the French government awarded her the medal of Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Death

She celebrated her 100th birthday in 2004. She died just one month shy of 103.

Publications