Magic and Mystery in Tibet

Originally published in English in 1932, Magic and Mystery in Tibet is an account of traveler and spiritualist Alexandra David-Neels 14 years in Tibet, at a time when the country was closed to foreigners. This true story reads like a novel compared to earlier travel books from the 19th century, artfully invoking pictures of what it was like to live in Tibet during a time when few outsiders had seen its soil. David-Neel lets readers inside her head and describes what it was like to live with and learn from a people whose way of life was vastly different from their western counterparts. Her stories will fascinate anyone interested in culture, travel, and the far east. ALEXANDRA DAVID-NEEL (1868-1969) was a French-Belgian Buhddist, spiritualist, writer, and explorer. She authored more than thirty books from 1898 to 1968 on her travels and Eastern philosophy and religion. She is best known for her trip to Tibet in 1924, when the country was closed to foreigners, though she also traveled to India twice (including to the Royal Monastery of Sikkim, where she met the Dalai Lama), Vietnam, and Japan.