Myth and Reality

Guided by the accounts of such female travelers as Lady Montagu, Julia Pardoe, and Lucy Garnett, all of whom lived in Ottoman lands for significant periods of time, this beautifully illustrated book explores and hopes to overturn the 19th-century stereotypes of Ottoman women. Both Eastern and Western accounts of Turkish society during that time made much of the harem, with Orientalist writers describing Turkish women as exotic, indolent, and depraved, while some Europeans usual