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

The Secrets of the Harem was originally published anonymously in 1894. It describes the intricacies in Turkish Harems, discussing the roles of the women, the benefits, and the traditions. It is a relatively short book that fell out of popularity for a number of decades, but has since regained popularity recently. Odin's Library Classics is dedicated to bringing the world the best of humankind's literature from throughout the ages. Carefully selected, each work is unabridged from classic works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or drama.

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.

In a nuanced reading of Ingres's Bain turc and other works, Yeazell concludes that for some the appeal of the harem lay in the fantasy of eluding time and death."--BOOK JACKET.

Romanticism had its roots in fantasy and fed on myth'. So Roderick Cavaliero introduces the European Romantic obsession with the Orient.Cavaliero draws on a life-time's research in Romantic literature and introduces a rich cast of leading Romantic writers,artists,musicians and travellers,including Beckford,Byron, Shelley,Walter Scott,Pierre Loti,Thomas Moore,Rossini,Eugene Delacroix,Thackeray and Disraeli,and a host of other Romantics,who were drawn to the Orient in the 18th and 19th centuries.They luxuriate in its exotic sights,sounds,literature and,above all, in the prevailing mythology.Cavaliero analyses the Romantic vision where,as Byron writes, there are 'virgins soft as the roses they twine',but lays bare an underlying vision of cruelty and oppression, and of societies based on domestic or prisoner slavery - anathema to the 19th-century Romantic. The overarching myth was that of the Ottoman Empire,a huge and exotic superpower,an empire to rival Rome,a major threat to Europe, with an invincible military record ruled by a Sultan with absolute, even feckless, power of life and death over his subjects who lived to 'delight his senses'.But to the Romantics,fear of the absolute ruler was overlaid by frissons of oriental luxury. Thus the Ottoman Sultans were the heirs of the iconic Caliphate of Harun ar Rashid in the fabulous Arabian Nights Entertainments.Coleridge's dream of the Orient in Kubla Khan was not of the barbaric grandeur of the global Mongol empire but that of a 'stately pleasure dome in Xanadu' among incense-bearing trees and untroubled forests. Moore's Lalla Rookh was set in his visionary vale of Kashmir and is a love story in 'a land of kingfishers and golden orioles' with the backdrop of the mighty Moghul Empire. Scott was obsessed by the chivalry of the Crusades on both sides and Disraeli was fascinated by the interplay of the Abrahamic faiths and the hopes of peace in the Holy Land. Dualism runs through Romantic writing even when European realpolitik and modern nationalism are involved - as in the Greek revolt against Ottoman rule and the decline of Turkey as a great power. But above all for the Romantics the Orient remained mysterious and inviting. Cavaliero's Ottomania will delight all readers interested in tales of the exotic Orient, and the literature of the Romantic movement - a rich treasure-house of poets, novelists and travellers.