To Sir Mark Sykes, the pre-WWI British Foreign Office Arabist, "that damned fool," Miss Bell, created an "uproar" wherever she went in the Middle East and was "the terror of the desert." Three social seasons were all a young lady of good family was allotted to snare a husband. Gertrude Bell (1868-1926) had thrice failed and received the consolation prize, a trip to Teheran to visit her uncle, the British envoy there. After that, she could not be kept...

"The true story of socialite spy Marguerite Harrison, who slipped behind enemy lines in Russia and Germany in the fraught period between the world wars Foreign correspondent. Author. Filmmaker. Spy. Marguerite Harrison was born into Gilded Age American privilege and launched a successful career as a culture writer for the Baltimore Sun as a young widow. But when America entered World War I, Harrison secretly applied for a position in intelligence....