For the first time since the 1960s, noted early Land Rover explorer Barbara Toy’s book In Search of Sheba is back in print, the first Barbara Toy book to be in print since 2009.
For the first time since the 1960s, noted early Land Rover explorer Barbara Toy’s book In Search of Sheba is back in print, the first Barbara Toy book to be in print since 2009.
In Search of Sheba is the story of Barbara’s 1959-60 trip to East Africa, undertaken in a Series II. Her goal was to find the traces of the biblical figure the Queen of Sheba, and her journey took her from Britain to Ethiopia. There, she ascended the highlands of Haile Selassie's empire. Her Ethiopian travels took her from modern Addis Ababa to the ancient ruins of Aksum, through the bandit-ridden countryside to the summit of Mount Wehni - where male heirs to the emperor were traditionally imprisoned for life. She was one of the very first Westerners to see Mount Wehni, when she stepped off a helicopter and spent the night on the mountain.
Barbara Toy published eight books in her lifetime, starting with her earliest explorations in her Series I 80”, Pollyanna. She was one of the first people – never mind the first woman – to extensively explore the world in a Land Rover. (Check out our biography on Barbara here.) In 2009, Travelling the Incense Route was published, a posthumous reprint of her final title, The Highway of the Three Kings. Since then, there have been no authorized modern publications of her books. Original copies of her books from the 1950s and 1960s can go easily for three figures, making this reprint a way to make Barbara more accessible to more people for the first time in many years.
The reprint has a personal significance as well, as I personally had a hand in bringing the book back to print, alongside Ashley Giordano, Senior Editor at Expedition Portal and Overland Journal. Bringing Barbara back in print has been a side passion project of mine for several years, and a bit over a year ago, Ashley and I connected over our common goal to get the books reprinted and get Barbara’s journeys back in the public mind. During the journey, we connected with Lois Pryce, a modern-day motorcycle adventurer who has crossed the world in Barbara Toy’s spirit – and who wrote the foreword to the new volume. She then connected us to Nick Hunt, who was assembling the John Murray Journeys collection, a series of reprinted vintage travelogues originally published by John Murray Press – who published all eight of Barbara’s original titles. We are also indebted to Michael Bishop at Jaguar Land Rover Classic, who is also a die-hard Land Rover enthusiast and was a personal friend of Barbara’s in the 1990s and gave us valuable insight to make the correct connections to secure the rights to republish the title.
In Search of Sheba is currently only available from booksellers in the United Kingdom. However, several British booksellers have cheap or free shipping to North America. Check out the publisher’s website to find a UK bookseller who can ship it to you easily.
On Friday, July 27th, there will be a virtual launch party with British bookseller Stanfords. The event will be at 1:30 PM UK time, 8:30 AM Eastern Time. The event will feature presentations by Lois Pryce, Nick Hunt, and Jeet Thayil, who introduced Dom Moraes’ Gone Away, another title in this season’s John Murray Journeys release. Click here to buy tickets for the launch party.
After many years, it’s significant to all Land Rover and overland enthusiasts to have this level of access to Barbara Toy’s original work. Her story is legendary in our community, but her original works have been inaccessible to so many due to their rarity and extreme cost. It is Ashley’s and my intent that In Search of Sheba is only the beginning of bringing Barbara’s full collection of titles back in print, so that her remarkable early journeys can be better known by a new generation of explorers.
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