The Secrets of the Harem is an anonymous insider view on historical Turkish harems. Excerpt: "Many people have an idea that Turkish women absolutely do nothing that is either useful or ornamental aside from the decoration of their own persons, but that is not altogether true, as my residence of over a year in their country taught me, for they are really dextrous with the needle and do work which is as fine as that done by the sisters in the convents, or that of the wives of the feudal noblemen of olden times. The favorite pastime of the Turkish women is the bath, which brings together the wives and slaves of all the well-to-do Turks, and it is like a picnic of school children. These wives, most of them very young—some, indeed, not over twelve or fourteen years old—take their lunch along, and they eat and steam, plunge and splash, and play pranks upon each other in the wildest glee the whole day long. No fear of an angry husband haunts their minds, for they are not expected to do anything, and their husbands very rarely enter the harems before six o'clock. By this time they are all back, rosy and sweet from their bath."

"This all-color book describes the Turkish harem in a comprehensive manner, bringing it to life with sensual, evocative illustrations and well-documented text." "The author describes the reigns and idiosyncracies of the Sultans and their favorites and brilliantly traces the decline of a once mighty empire grown soft from the corruption of absolute power, the influence of Europe, and above all, the usurpation of control by the very women who were supposed to live in complete subjugation to their lords and masters." "Illustrated by documents of the period, old and new photographs, and masterpieces by Renoir, Delacroix, Matisse, and Ingres among others, this revelation of a lost way of life will enchant anybody whose imagination has been inflamed by tales of a thousand and one nights."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

A comprehensive study of economic theory in relation to the development of nineteenth-century British theatre.

1530, Istanbul. In the centre of empire lurks sexual depravity, murder, intrigue, lies, spies, and deceit. Adam Pasha, the Chief Justice, investigates a death in the Imperial Harem.

"The essays collected in this volume explore many of the most interesting, and some of the more surprising, reactions of English people in the early modern period to their encounters with the mysterious and the foreign. In this period the small and peripheral nation of English speakers first explored the distant world from the Arctic, to the tropics of the Americas, to the exotic East, and snowy wastes of Russia, recording its impressions and adventures in an equally wide variety of literary genres. Nearer home, fresh encounters with the mysterious world of the Ottoman Empire and the lure of the Holy Land, and, of course, with the evocative wonders of Italy, provide equally rich accounts for the consumption of a reading and theatergoing public. This growing public proved to be, in some cases, naive and gullible, in others urbanely sophisticated in its reactions to "otherness," or frankly incredulous of travelers' tales."--BOOK JACKET.

In this first of a trilogy, "Secrets," Antonia learns through her relationships with four men to become a woman. The secrets of her loveless Alabama childhood help us understand the romantically-driven, searching-for-love adult woman. Antonia is secretly in love with, and grieving for, the now dead Catlin (Catlin is based on James Jones, author of "From Here to Eternity"). Antonia is separated from her deceitful husband, John; unexpectedly, she found him in her bed with another woman. "Secrets," To add to love entanglements, Antonia now lives with Vic, the wild motorcycle rider she met the night John cheated. Icy John and his developing alcoholism drove Antonia away; his unfaithfulness was only a bitter ending. And always, Antonia grows through her experiences, secrets and too late love for Catlin. She finds herself described in his final book. Antonia buys a small house in Louisiana and when carefree, heedless Vic becomes erratic, Antonia chooses, regretfully to be sure, to tell Vic goodbye. From the black and white biblical bleakness of the beginning, this brave and wounded long-ago girl is now grown up. Antonia decides to own herself and her life. No more secrets.